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CITIZENSHIP 

IN SCHOOL AND OUT 



THE FIRST SIX YEARS OF 
SCHOOL LIFE 



BY 

ARTHUR WILLIAM DUNN 

SPECIALIST IN CIVIC EDUCATION, U. S. BUREAU OF EDUCATION, 

AND AUTHOR OF "THE COMMUNITY AND THE CITIZEN" 

AND "COMMUNITY CIVICS AND RURAL LIFE " 

AND 

HANNAH MARGARET HARRIS 

i 

INSTRUCTOR IN HISTORY, CIVICS, AND ENGLISH, 

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, HYANNIS, 

MASSACHUSETTS 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



Copyright, 1919, 

By D. C. Heath & Co. 
1f9 



»* • 



©CI.A529340 



JUL 25 1919 



£1 




I 



ACKNO WLED GMENTS 

So far as my part in this book is concerned, it is mainly 
the outgrowth of some years of experience in supervising 
the work in history, civics, and English in the Training 
School at Hyannis, Massachusetts, which has for its motto, 
"A live child in a live school." The philosophy of educa- 
tion which finds brief expression in this motto has provided 
the congenial atmosphere in which these plans of work have 
unfolded, and I desire to acknowledge with gratitude my 
indebtedness to Mr. W. A. Baldwin, Principal of the State 
Normal School at Hyannis, for stimulating suggestion and 
illuminating aid received all along the way. 

My hearty thanks are due also to all my fellow teachers 
in both Normal School and Training School for most oblig- 
ing and able cooperation. Among the favors received at 
the hands of my colleagues I cannot omit to mention with 
special gratitude the valuable suggestions received in the 
course of my writing from Miss Julia Anna Haynes and 
Miss Annie S. Crowell, each of whom has read parts of the 
manuscript and in various other ways has given the help 
of a friend. 

To Mr. Charles D. Kingsley, Agent of the Massachusetts 
State Board of Education, I am indebted for the encourage- 
ment which first led me to this attempt to pass on my plans 
for training in citizenship to a larger number of teachers 
than those of our own school. 

Finally, to my collaborator in this attempt I make grate- 
ful acknowledgment of counsel so wise and sympathetic 
as to be invaluable to me personally and of criticism so dis- 
criminating and constructive as to be essential to whatever 
success the attempt may attain. 

Hannah Margaret Harris 

iii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction ix 

I. The Opportunity of the Elementary School in 

a Democracy i 

Before the War and Now i 

Different Conceptions of the Teaching of Civics. . . 3 
The Grown Citizen in the Five Fields of Citizenship 5 
The Growing Citizen in the Five Fields of Citizen- 
ship 6 

The Essential Character and the Inevitable Condi- 
tions of Training in Citizenship 7 

II. The Daily Program of the Elementary School 15 

Possible Reorganization of School Work 15 

The Use of the Following Lessons with a Conven- 
tional Program 16 

III. Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades... 19 

Centers of Interest 19 

The First Year in School 23 

The Second Year in School. 32 

The Third Year in School 34 

IV. Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade... 35 

Citizenship in the Home 35 

Housekeeping Play . . . . , 35 

An Illustrative Lesson 38 

Stories and Poems which Idealize Home Life 39 

Citizenship in Recreation 40 

Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments .... 40 

Stories, Poems, Songs, Pictures 43 

Celebration of Holidays 44 

Y 



vi Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Citizenship in Work 48 

Working Together 48 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 50 

Practice in Social Virtues and Graces 50 

Stories Illustrating Social Virtues and Graces ... 50 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 51 

Sharing Consciously the Community Life of the 

School 51 

Dramatization of Getting and Giving Help on a 

City Street 52 

V. Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade. 55 

Citizenship in the Home 55 

A Study of the Children's Own Homes 55 

Activities of the Home Life 55 

Stories, Poems, Pictures 56 

A Study of Eskimo Home Life 56 

Citizenship in Recreation 57 

Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments. ... 57 

Stories, Songs, Poems, Pictures 58 

Celebration of Holidays 60 

Citizenship in Work 61 

Working Together 61 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 62 

Practice in Social Virtues and Graces 62 

Stories Illustrating Social Virtues and Graces ... 63 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 63 

Sharing Consciously the Community Life of the 

School 63 

Playing Postman 64 

VI. Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade . . 66 

Citizenship in the Home . 66 

A Study of the Children's Own Homes 66 

Relationships of the Home Life 66 

Stories, Poems, Pictures. 67 

A Study of Indian Home Life 67 



Contents vii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

A Study of the Neighborhood 68 

Citizenship in Recreation 69 

Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments .... 69 

Stories, Poems, Songs, Pictures 70 

Celebration of Holidays 71 

Citizenship in Work 72 

Working Together 72 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 73 

Practice of the Social Virtues and Graces 73 

Stories Illustrating Social Virtues and Graces ... 74 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 75 

Sharing Consciously the Community Life of the 

School 75 

A Study of the Advantages of Organized Cooper- 
ation 75 

Dramatization of Visits to Places of Pleasure and 

Privilege 77 

The Park 77 

The Library 78 

VII. Courses of Study in the Intermediate Grades 79 

Work Expected from Children of these Grades .... 79 

The Use versus the Abuse of Courses of Study .... 80 
Illustrations : 

American History in the Fourth and Fifth 

Grades 81 

European History in the Sixth Grade 8^ 

VIII. Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 85 

Citizenship in the Home . 85 

Connecting School Work and Home Work 85 

Literature of Home Life 86 

Citizenship in Recreation 87 

Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments. ... 87 

Stories, Poems, Songs, Pictures. . . 89 

Celebration of Holidays 90 

Citizenship in Work , 93 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Working Together and for Others 93 

A Study of Occupations 95 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 96 

Practice of the Social Virtues and Graces 96 

A Study of Certain Social Customs 96 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 97 

A Study of this School 97 

A Study of Voluntary Cooperation 100 

IX. Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade. . 101 

Citizenship in the Home 101 

Connecting School Work and Home Work 101 

A Study of the Essentials of Home Life 102 

Historical Stories and Projects 103 

Citizenship in Recreation 104 

Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments. . . . 104 

Recreational Reading 106 

Celebration of Holidays 107 

An Illustrative Lesson 108 

Citizenship in Work 113 

Working Together and for Others 113 

A Study of Physical Surroundings and Getting a 

Living 114 

Historical Stories 114 

A Study of How Our Wants are Supplied 115 

A Study of How We Supply Wants of Others .... 116 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 117 

Practice of the Social Virtues 117 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 119 

The Playing of Organized Games 119 

A Study of "The Rules of the Game" 119 

A Study of Cooperation for Safety 120 

X. Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade. . 123 

Citizenship in the Home 123 

Connecting School Work and Home Work 123 

A Study of the Connections of Home with the 

Outside World . .'■ , 123 



Contents ix 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Citizenship in Recreation 124 

Celebration of Seasonal Festivals 124 

Recreational Reading 127 

Citizenship in Work 128 

Working Together and for Others 128 

A Study of Several Inventions 129 

A Study of Services to the Community - 130 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse .131 

Practice of the Social Virtues 13 x 

Stories from European History 13 1 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 137 

Organization and Conduct of a School Club. . . . 137 

A Study of the School Community 137 

A Study of Concrete Instances of Beneficial 

Community Action 138 

Bibliography of Children's Literature 141 



INTRODUCTION 

For the plan and execution of the following chapters the 
reader is indebted to Miss Harris. All that is original in the 
plan and in the method of treatment is hers, and has grown 
directly out of her own successful experience and that of 
teachers under her direction or observation. It has been a 
privilege to cooperate in a slight degree in the elaboration of 
her plan and in making available to other teachers the results 
of her experience. 

Citizenship In School and Out is timely. The outcome 
of the war has committed the world to the principles of 
democracy as it has never been committed before. America's 
part in this outcome has imposed upon her a mighty responsi- 
bility and an equally marvelous opportunity for service. 
Whether the principles for which we have fought shall be 
realized or discredited will depend upon our ability to make 
them live in practice; and our American schools will in- 
evitably have much to do with determining how we shall 
meet our responsibility and opportunity, and whether the 
results of the war shall be permanent and beneficent as we 
have faith that they will be. 

Perhaps the obligation of the schools is no greater at this 
time than at any other, but we feel it more keenly and more 
generally. For this very reason their opportunity is greater. 
Never before has there been so general an interest in civic 
education as at present. It is finding expression not only in 
the schools themselves and in the propaganda of educational 
and civic organizations, but also in express legislation enacted 
or proposed in several states. The subject received recogni- 

xi 



xii Citizenship In School and Out 

tion by the President in the midst of his preoccupation with 
international affairs of the greatest moment; indeed it was 
because of the gravity of the national and international 
situation that he urged upon the schools the necessity of 
training in civic consciousness and civic duty. 

No one doubts the need for civic training in a democracy, 
nor the responsibility of the school in the matter. The 
question is, how shall the responsibility be met ? The follow- 
ing chapters afford an answer to this question, so far as the 
elementary schools are concerned, that should be welcome to 
teachers who are in quest of methods of procedure that will 
help them practically to fulfill their obligations as trainers of 
citizens. While it is, perhaps, not the only answer, it is one, 
at least, that is based on principles that must guide in any 
attempt at the civic training of young citizens that is to be 
at all efficacious — principles that have been too generally 
overlooked. 

It has been prophesied that the work of the public schools 
will be profoundly modified by the war, and in some direc- 
tions more than others; for example, in physical education. 
The war has made us vividly conscious that the schools have 
not done their full duty in developing a physically fit man- 
hood and womanhood. No less, however, should be the 
effect upon the civic training afforded In fact, the increased 
attention to physical training has a distinctly civic motive. 
Efficient democracy is the thing aimed at whether we think 
of it in terms of physical fitness, industrial fitness, or moral, 
social, and political fitness. If the lessons of the war are 
really applied constructively to the modification of the work 
of the schools, education for citizenship and in citizenship 
will hereafter be "a more conspicuous aim," to use a phrase 
of Commissioner of Education Payson Smith, of Massachu- 
setts. The initial premise upon which the following chapters 
are based is that "the one essential function of the American 



Introduction xiii 

public school" is "to educate citizens who will make demo- 
cracy safe for the world." 

A second conviction underlying this book is that civic 
education to be efficacious must begin with the child's 
entrance to school and must be continuous and persistent. 
The chief desideratum is to cultivate an habitual attitude of 
mind toward one's civic relations and responsibilities and 
toward the community's organization and practice by which 
alone these responsibilities can be fulfilled. Such habitual 
attitude of mind cannot be grafted on to the citizen after he 
has largely attained his growth, but must grow into the very 
texture of his being, must be an essential part of him. Speak- 
ing more precisely, the young citizen is developing an habit- 
ual attitude of mind toward his civic relations all the time, 
without guidance if not with it. It is not a thing that we 
can will him to do or not to do. If the process goes on with- 
out guidance during the six formative years of elementary 
school life, any attempt to shape civic habits in the later 
years becomes vastly more difficult. It becomes a process 
of re-making, and the longer it is postponed the more difficult 
it becomes The school has a large responsibility for getting 
the young citizen sta ted right in his civic growth, no matter 
how well-planned a course of civic instruction may be await- 
ing him in later years. The responsibility appears even 
greater when we think of the large percentage of young 
citizens who reach the age when they may legally leave school 
by the time they complete their elementary course, and do so; 
when we realize that " school terms are so short in many 
states and compulsory attendance is so badly enforced that 
the school life of the average person growing up in rural 
sections is only 4.5 school years of 140 days each." 

The Committee on Social Studies of the National Educa- 
tion Association's Commission on the Reorganization of 
Secondary Education recognizes this need for an early be- 



in 



xiv Citizenship In School and Out 

ginning in civic education. Its report advocates a " cycle 
organization of civic studies (see Report on Social Studies i,* 
Secondary Education, Bulletin, 1916, No. 28, U. S. Bureau 
of Fiucation). 

"The course of social studies proposed for the years VII-IX consti- 
tutes a cycle to be followed by a sirhilar cycle in the years X-XII, and 
presumably preceded by another similar cycle in the six elementary 
grades." 

The reasons suggested for this cycle arrangement are three: 
(1) It gives opportunity for a well rounded, though elemen- 
tary, course of civic or social training in the earlier grades for 
the very large number of young citizens who pursue their 
education no further; (2) it makes possible a type of training 
and instruction in each cycle adapted to the mental and social 
experience and needs of the pupils during well marked 
periods of growth; and (3) it provides for a foundation in the 
earlier cycles that is absolutely indispensable for effective 
work in the later cycles. " Assuming that provision has been 
made for the social aspect of education in grades I-VI of the 
elementary school, the following general plan ... is pro- 
posed for the years VII-XII." {Report on Social Studies, 
pp. n-12). 

A good deal of progress has been made in recent years 
toward vitalizing civic education in the upper grades, espe- 
cially in the junior high school period in the form of " com- 
munity civics." But even the best of this work has lost in 
effectiveness because the assumption of the Committee on 
Social Studies that " provision has been made for the social 
aspect of education in the elementary school," has not been 
realized. Citizenship In School and Out makes a distinct 
contribution not only to elementary civic education as such, 
but also to the problem of the higher grades. 

Courses of civic instruction or of civic training for the 



Introduction xv 

elementary grades have by no means been entirely lacking. 
Such courses, however, are as a rule one-sided or expressive 
of a single idea and in too many cases disregard recognized 
educational principles. A few years ago the author of >this 
Introduction in dij.ussing "the trend of civic education" l 
pointed out that the aims of civic education must be at least 
threefold: it must train citizens who axe intelligent with 
respect to civic matters; it must cultivate adequate and 
proper motives for civic conduct (including civic ideals) ; and 
it must cultivate the traits and habits that characterize the 
" good citizen." All of these aims must be constantly present 
in the mind of the teacher, and her procedure must be such 
as to realize them. Unfortunately this is not often the case. 

Since it is largely the recognition of all these aims that gives 
significance to the plan and method of the following chapters, 
it may be well to consider them in some detail. 

i . Civic Intelligence, — The controlling aim in most 
courses of civics has been civic intelligence. Moreover, 
civic intelligence has been conceived of as synonymous with 
civic knowledge. The result of this is that much of our civic 
instruction has been content with the impartation of infor- 
mation — supposedly true information, but almost always 
of narrow range and pertaining primarily to governmental 
mechanism. Knowledge about government is not the only 
knowledge that the intelligent citizen must have; but more 
important than this, no amount of knowledge will make an 
intelligent citizen unless he is able to use it, and unless he 
uses it with judgment, which includes the power and habit of 
deferring final judgments until all essential facts are in hand 
and interpreted in familiar terms. 

It is one of the duties of citizenship to be informed about 
government and other civic matters; but it is not the duty 

1 Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 19 14, Vol. I, 
Chapter 18. 



xvi Citizenship In School and Out 

of young citizens to know as much about these things as adult 
citizens should know. The attempt to make children learn 
many of the things which adults have found useful is very 
often fruitless because children have not the basis of experi- 
ence that alone can give meaning to the knowledge. They 
quickly " forget " because they never really knew. One fault 
with efforts to train for citizenship has been that of concen- 
trating attention too exclusively upon the citizenship that 
children are to enjoy and exercise in the future to the neglect 
of the citizenship that they are enjoying and experiencing 
now. A result of this is that our methods have been those of 
rilling the mental storehouse for future use instead of those 
of cultivating a growing plant. The gardener is of course 
concerned with the crop he is to get at harvest time, but he 
knows that the best way and the only way to assure that 
crop is to provide the plant with nourishment that it can use 
in its present growth. 1 

This is the cardinal principle that permeates the report of 
the Committee on Social Studies and to which the Committee 
gives expression in the words of Professor Dewey: 

"We are continually uneasy about the things we adults know and are 
afraid the child will never learn them unless they are drilled into him by 
instruction before he has any intellectual use for them. If we could 
really believe that attending to the needs of present growth would keep 
the child and teacher alike busy and would also provide the best possible 
guarantee of the learning needed in the future, transformation of educa- 
tional ideals might soon be accomplished, and other desirable changes 
would largely take care of themselves." 

This is also the cardinal principle that permeates the follow- 
ing chapters and to which the " suggestions for lessons' ' give 
an interpretation in practice that should be of the greatest 
service to teachers and to our democracy. 

1 Instruction and Practice in the Duties of Citizenship, by Arthur W. 
Dunn, Bulletin No. i, 1918, Massachusetts State Board of Education. 



Introduction xvii 

In his story, "The Brown Mouse/' Mr. Herbert Quick 
admonishes us to " cease thinking so much about agricultural 
education, and devote ourselves to educational agriculture. 
So will the nation be made strong." This admonition con- 
tains an educational principle in harmony with that stated 
in the preceding paragraph, and peculiarly significant in its 
application to civic education. If Citizenship In School and 
Out seems to contain, or to suggest, a minimum of the kind 
of information that we adults have come to consider essen- 
tial to intelligent citizenship, it is because the book aims 
throughout to make the child's present citizenship educational, 
in the belief that this is " the best possible guarantee of the 
learning needed in the future;" that education /pr citizen- 
ship is contingent upon education in citizenship. "In the 
effort to increase children's intelligence in social or civic 
matters the teacher is sometimes tempted to begin by giving 
information which has perhaps been carefully prepared to 
reach their understanding, but which does not touch their 
interest, because it seems to them remote, belongs in a world 
which concerns only grown-ups, hence is easily forgotten" 
(p. 1 1) . "In this exercise from day to day of all the f mictions 
of citizenship which are already theirs, occasion will often 
arise for them to acquire such information regarding govern- 
ment and other social arrangements as will be useful both 
then and in later life. . . " (p. 13). 

It is only by the application of this principle, also, that the 
other essential factors in civic intelligence, so often neglected, 
can be cultivated — the ability to use knowledge, said judg- 
ment. Ability to use knowledge comes from practice in using 
it; and practice in using it can be had only in relation to 
situations actually experienced. Also, "to attempt to train 
the power of judgment by exercising it upon adult citizens' 
problems is a vain effort . . . The problem, then, which we 
select for the purpose of training the child's judgment must 



xviii Citizenship In School and Out 

be each and every time a child's problem, all its factors and 
conditions familiarly known to him, and its solution of some 
real concern to him" (pp. n, 12). 

2. Civic Motives and Ideals. — Reliance upon civic in- 
telligence as a means to good citizenship is vain unless that 
intelligence is grounded in proper civic motives and ideals. 
Whatever limitations are imposed upon the cultivation of 
civic intelligence by the child's immaturity and lack of 
experience, the task of cultivating motives and of forming 
ideals is vastly more difficult and delicate. The importance 
of this aspect of civic education has not been overlooked, and 
many teachers do exercise, consciously or unconsciously, a 
potent influence in fixing high civic ideals and in stimulating 
right civic conduct in their pupils. But efforts to lay down 
rules, or to prescribe methods, for the guidance of others have 
almost always been wofully inadequate. Their inadequacy 
often results from advocating specific devices, perhaps good 
enough in themselves, instead of clarifying principles that 
must control in the use of all devices if they are to be at all 
effective. It is believed that the following chapters, while 
they can not make this phase of civic education easy, will 
make it less formidable to the earnest teacher by the emphasis 
they give to such a controlling principle, and by the concrete 
illustration of the application of the principle in the several 
grades. The most important principle emphasized in this 
connection is the same as that already noticed in discussing 
the training of civic intelligence: 

"Must we not, when we are trying to show the children ideals, stand 
with them on the plane of their own experience . . . ? We are brought 
always to the same conclusion: whatever characteristic of the grown 
citizen we are trying to foster in the growing citizen, we find that the 
reasonable procedure is to use for our purpose the circumstances in 
which the child is naturally placed and the material which his own 
interest indicates is appropriate to his growth at that particular stage 
in his experience." (See p. 13.) 



Introduction xix 

3. Civic Traits and Habits. — The third aim of civic edu- 
cation is the cultivation of civic traits and habits (see above, 
p. xv). It is not too much to say that in the elementary 
grades, and especially in the primary grades, this should be 
the principal aim. Not a great deal should be expected of 
children in these grades by way of realization of civic intelli- 
gence or of appreciation of civic ideals, But civic traits and 
habits not only can be well started in these years, they must 
be started then both to meet present needs and to provide 
safely for the future. 

The truth is now generally recognized that we " learn to 
do only by doing ;" that habits are formed only by practice. 
Any plan of civic education that includes this aim of culti- 
vating civic habits and traits must, therefore, make use of 
the young citizen's activities. This is no new idea; but it is 
an idea to which, again, must be applied the principles to 
which we have already given so much attention; There is 
need for the caution urged in the following pages (pp. 3, 4, 
9-10) — to find out, first, "what civic relationships and 
activities do . . . concern the children and engage their 
thoughts and feelings in the present years of their lives and in 
the place which they normally. fill as child citizens of the com- 
munity." 

An instance was reported in the newspapers before the 
United States entered the world war, of a monster petition 
signed by thousands of school children in one of our large 
cities, to be presented by a committee (according to the 
newspaper report) directly to the diplomatic representatives 
in our country of the belligerent powers in the interest of 
peace. To say nothing of the wrong lesson in international 
procedure, such an incident (if it really occurred) is a striking 
example of the exploitation of children by interested adults 
in matters about which children could have no judgment and 
no immediate concern. "We cannot be certain of the per- 



xx Citizenship In School and Out 

sistence of habits formed in any matters in which the children 
have not a natural, live, personal interest. Habits formed 
by indifferent compliance with outside authority or sugges- 
tion are not always permanently useful habits'' (see pp. 
10, n). 

It may not be out of place, in this connection, to refer to 
the various forms of " pupil self-government" which imitate 
the forms of city, state, or national government, — a topic 
which may strike some as conspicuous, in the following pages, 
by the absence of explicit treatment. The authors of this 
book believe in pupil participation in many activities relat- 
ing to the management of the school, evidence of which is 
abundant in the following chapters. They also believe in 
the dramatization of governmental activities, as they believe 
in the dramatization of other activities, as a means of instruc- 
tion at times when governmental activities are a proper subject 
of instruction. But it is well to remember that the instruc- 
tional value of such dramatics, or imitation, is a thing wholly 
distinct from the educational value of real participation in 
the activities connected with the management of the school, 
which may exist without the dramatization. 

"Real civic training requires practice in meeting real present prob- 
lems by appropriate means. Neither the problem nor the means should 
be artificial. We cannot get away from the fact that the school com- 
munity is not a state nor a city community; that its problems are of 
their own kind; that the means of dealing with its problems must be 
adapted to their own ends. What is needed most is to inject democratic 
principles and methods into the realities of school life, rather than to 
make the school appear something that it is not. 

"This point of view does not overlook the instructional value of 
following the forms and procedure of city or state governments. In 
regard to this it may be said: (i) Occasional dramatization of govern- 
mental procedure has a certain value, but this value is apart from the 
principle of self-government. (2) The actual knowledge that boys and 
girls acquire regarding the forms and procedure of government through 
the establishment of an imitation in the school is extremely superficial, 



Introduction xxi 

inadequate and erroneous. It can only be the roughest approximation 
to the reality. (3) By the time young citizens reach the high school, and 
indeed the grammar grades, their knowledge of government may be 
acquired much more effectively and directly by other means, — by 
observation, by reading, and by participation in the activities of the 
larger communities of which they are also members just as truly as they 
are members of the school. Hence, the value of community civics which 
affords to pupils the opportunity to organize both their knowledge and 
their activities in relation to their larger community life, and in such a 
way as to deal with realities." 1 

The course outlined in the following chapters makes the 
children's activities, "in school and out/' its point of depar- 
ture and its principal medium for civic training. The reason 
for this is partly because only so may civic traits be instilled 
and civic habits fixed. But more than this, these activities 
afford the basis of experience by means of which civic knowl- 
edge and civic ideals may be interpreted. 

"The first step is to find out what civic relationships and activities do, 
as a matter of fact, concern the children and engage their thoughts and 
feelings in the present years of their lives . . . ; the next step is to give 
recognition in the school life to the most useful among these relation- 
ships and activities, and to supplement them in the school-room and on 
the playground until they become well-rounded social experiences pro- 
ductive of desirable social habits; and the final step is to interpret these 
experiences in lessons based upon them so as to add to the children's 
intelligence in civic matters and supply incentives toward good citizen- 
ship." (Page 4). 

It is believed, therefore, that teachers will find profitable 
the discussion of " centers of interest" in Chapter III and 
the illustration of their use which occurs in the succeeding 
chapters. 

Another significant feature of the plan of Citizenship In 
School and Out is the recognition in each grade of the "five 

1 Instruction and Practice in the Duties of Citizenship, by Arthur W. 
Dunn, Bulletin, 1918, No. 1, Massachusetts State Board of Education. 



xxii Citizenship In School and Out 

fields of citizenship" (pp. 4-8) — the home, work, recrea- 
tion, social intercourse, and organized community life. It 
is not the recognition of these five " fields" that is original — 
they or similar fields have been recognized before — but the 
plan of organization by which all of them are distinctly 
recognized in each and every grade. 

It has become quite common in courses of civic instruc- 
tion in the elementary grades to recognize, more or less 
clearly, some such fields of citizenship in sequence — the 
"home" being the center of attention in the first grade, the 
" school" in the second grade, the " neighborhood," perhaps, 
in the third, " industry" (the "field of work") in a later 
grade, and so finally leading up to a more comprehensive 
study of "the community" in the grammar grades or first 
year of the high school, when "local," "state," and "na- 
tional" governments are taken up also in sequence. The 
significance of the plan followed in the present book lies in 
the fact that in the actual experience of the growing citizen 
these "fields" of citizenship are not in sequence, but con- 
current, and together make up the sum of his social experi- 
ence at any given time. The very fact that they "are not as 
distinctly differentiated in his [the child's] case as in that of 
the adult citizen" makes it necessary to recognize all fields 
from the very beginning. Though they become more clearly 
differentiated as the citizen grows to maturity, and though 
interest centers in one more than in another at different 
times, they are all present at all times. The home never 
ceases to be an important field of citizenship, and the young 
citizen of school age always has some interest, however slight, 
in the "field of work" or in that of "organized community 
life." 

If the young citizen's civic education "is to be well rounded, 
each and every one of these fields must receive the teacher's 
attention, at one time or another, and in due proportion" in 



Introduction xxiii 

every grade. By this means the growing citizen is carried 
through a lesser "cycle" of social education each year, 
instead of merely through a segment, as well as through the 
larger cycles recommended by the Committee on Social 
Studies. Each year's experience in every "field" thus 
becomes working capital for definite use in succeeding years. 
Comment may be made, finally, upon the conviction 
underlying the course of study here outlined, that civic 
education in the elementary grades, to be effective, must not 
only be continuous throughout these years, but must also 
look for its opportunity and its materials in connection with 
every subject and every activity of the school. There are 
those who fear, as is pointed out in a later page, that civic 
instruction that is "incidental" to instruction in other 
"subjects" will tend to become wholly "accidental," and 
who, therefore, insist upon a definite period of the day for 
such instruction. If such a period is available, well and 
good, but by itself it is wholly inadequate. The course here 
outlined deliberately organizes the work in relation to the 
other "subjects" of the curriculum, not as a makeshift for 
lack of an available "period" for independent civic instruc- 
tion, but because of the belief that the training of the young 
citizen for and in the duties of citizenship should be neither 
an "accident" nor an "incident," but the one controlling 
aim of public education. 

Arthur William Dunn 



CITIZENSHIP 

IN SCHOOL AND OUT 



CHAPTER I 

The Opportunity of the Elementary School 
in a Democracy 

In the fierce light which a world-wide war has shed upon 
all social institutions, certain features half hidden before in 
the shadow of custom are now plainly discernible, and shapes 
before but vaguely seen through the mists of speculation are 
at last revealed in bold and clear cut outline. Among the 
institutions whose purposes and work are being thus seen 
anew the public school looms large. 

Before the war we, the American public, had often pointed 
out differences between those whom we proudly called typical 
American citizens and the typical subjects of a European 
autocracy, but we had not fully realized the significance of 
these differences. It had not yet been brought home to us 
that the power of independent thinking, the sense of civic 
responsibility, and all the rest that we choose to call dis- 
tinctively American traits, are not only the product of demo- 
cratic institutions but are also the hope for the continuance 
of these institutions; nor had we keenly sensed the dangers 
attendant on the fact that this type of citizenship is far from 
being universal among us. Now, taught by the marked 



2 Citizenship In School and Out 

contrasts which war has shown us, we have learned that 
there are certain traits, habits, and ideals, differing widely 
from the requisites for contented citizenship in an autocracy, 
which belong by eternal necessity with useful citizenship in 
a democracy; moreover, that these must become the posses- 
sion of the mass of our citizens if our republic is to live. 

Before the war we had begun to think of schools as agencies 
not only for building the characters of individuals, but also 
for modifying the characteristics of society itself, but we had 
not dreamed how far reaching this modification might be. 
Now, better informed by the exhibition which Prussia has 
made of her schools and their product, we are convinced that 
a carefully planned and efficiently operated system of educa- 
tion can go very far indeed toward producing exactly the kind 
of citizenship which is desired by those who shape the policy 
of a State. 

Before the war we were coming to believe that to educate 
children in good citizenship was one of the important func- 
tions of the school, but we were still " careful and troubled 
about many things," and it often seemed impossible to make 
room in a crowded curriculum for this one thing more. 
Now, inspired by the greatness of the opportunity which the 
outcome of the war has brought us, we see clearly that to 
educate citizens who will make democracy safe for the world 
is the one essential function of the American public school. 

We may expect the next decade to bring about a radical 
modification of our educational system with the distinct 
purpose of meeting this public demand for training in citizen- 
ship. This demand, so much more sharply accentuated 
now than ever before, is, of course, no new demand created 
by the war. For longer than the past decade many teachers 
and other school officials throughout the country have heard 
clearly this demand, have recognized fully its justice, and 
have devoted their chief efforts to meeting it and to satis- 



The Opportunity of the Elementary School 3 

fying their own ideal of the education most useful to the 
citizens of a democracy. These efforts furnish us with a 
considerable body of experiments very valuable for study, 
and such study may well bring rapid advance from now on. 

In the progress already made there may be plainly seen 
the tendency to broaden the definition of the term citizen- 
ship far beyond its meaning to the last generation of teachers. 
The mastering of a text book in " Civil Government" is no 
longer considered sufficient education in citizenship; for 
citizenship is seen to cover much more than a knowledge of the 
machinery of government and its operation. That citizen- 
ship means also actual participation in community affairs 
is conceded, and in many schools instruction in civil govern- 
ment is supplemented by much attention to the public 
activities of the local community. It is sought to interest 
the children in all the good movements which are engaging 
the attention of the grown citizens of that locality. Chil- 
dren's crusades against ill-kept markets, juvenile organizations 
for assisting the street cleaning department, even junior 
police squads, are instituted to secure this participation. 
Unquestionably this method of teaching civics is a step in 
advance, not only because it broadens the definition of 
citizenship, but also because it recognizes the truth that 
children are chiefly interested in things which they can do 
and that they can "learn to do only by doing. " Experi- 
ments in this direction have, however, not infrequently 
failed to realize the hopes with which they were undertaken. 
There are doubtless some public causes more likely to be 
retarded than promoted by the efforts of children, and some 
in which their interest can be only the result of artificial 
stimulus and therefore must soon flag or turn to disappoint- 
ment and distaste. 

More fruitful than these attempts to educate children 
in citizenship mainly by giving them a share in the civic under- 



4 Citizenship In School and Out 

takings of their elders is the effort of some schools to use for 
this purpose the civic situations in which their pupils are 
actually living. In this effort the first step is to find out what 
civic relationships and activities do, as a matter of fact, 
concern the children and engage their thoughts and feelings 
in the present years of their lives and in the place which they 
normally fill as child citizens of the community; the next step 
is to give recognition in the school life to the most useful 
among these relationships and activities, and to supplement 
them in the school room and on the playground until they 
become well rounded social experiences productive of desir- 
able social habits; and the final step is so to interpret these 
experiences in lessons based upon them as to add to the chil- 
dren's intelligence in civic matters and supply incentive for 
efforts toward good citizenship. This plan of civic educa- 
tion appears to conform to the general principles of teaching 
which have been conceded to be sound when other phases of 
education have been of recent years under discussion. Hence 
there appears reason to hope that through the application of 
these principles education in citizenship may receive the 
same impetus that has already been received by education 
in "the natural sciences." 

Perhaps the greatest hindrance to progress by the path 
last indicated is the vagueness in which our conception of 
citizenship is apt to lose itself as soon as we cease to limit it to 
political affairs alone. 

We must indeed admit a wide inclusiveness in the term 
citizenship. It is plain that the quality of a man's citizen- 
ship shows itself not only in the vote which he casts and the 
way in which he fills a political office, but also in all relations 
and activities which demand cooperation with others to 
secure the benefits of an ordered social life. The variety of 
relationships and activities which the term citizenship must 
cover becomes, however, a source of confusion in our think- 



The Opportunity of the Elementary School 5 

ing when we attack the problem of education for each and 
every one of its functions. We need to simplify the problem 
by some sort of classification of the situations in life which 
have a civic bearing. 

If we attempt to define our ideal of a good citizen of the 
United States, we shall no doubt picture to ourselves a man 
who takes an active, competent, and helpful part in the great 
cooperative enterprise of this democracy. Now to make our 
classification of the relations and activities in which this ideal 
citizenship manifests itself we have only to discover the 
typical situations in which this complex enterprise of national 
life is being carried on, the situations in which the individual 
citizen has the opportunity to make his contribution to the 
successful life of the democracy. Surely in the homes of the 
nation, which furnish to this generation its material and 
spiritual shelter and to the next generation its nurture, an 
essential part of this enterprise is being wrought out. No 
less, in the mines and factories, on the railroads and in the 
shipyards, in the banks and on the farms, — wherever the 
industries of the country are producing and distributing to 
its people the means of life, a necessary part of this immense 
undertaking is being performed. Even in the places where 
sports and amusements are filling leisure hours this high 
enterprise is being furthered by a renewal of health and 
happiness in the participants. Again, where people are met 
together for the forming of friendships and the social inter- 
course which leads to honorable courtship and marriage 
another indispensable phase of our national life is taking 
shape. Finally, in legislatures and courts, in the army and 
navy, in churches and fraternal orders, in clubs and in labor 
unions, — wherever men have definitely associated them- 
selves together to secure through organization their common 
purposes, there is being carried forward, of course, a most 
conspicuous part of this enterprise in democracy. 



6 Citizenship In School and Out 

Thus it appears that there are five fields of citizenship in 
which the normal man lives and finds his opportunity to 
contribute to the common life of the nation, — in the home, 
at work , in recreation, in social intercourse, and in organized 
community life. These are, then, the five classes of relation- 
ships and activities for which our schools must educate their 
pupils. 

It is the grown citizen, the product of the schools, whose 
civic life we have thus pictured. But must the child wait 
for man's estate to enter upon all or any of these fields of 
citizenship ? Let us shadow any individual, of any age, and 
see if he can be found, at any time, living, thinking, acting, 
in any other than one of these five fields. Let us seize any 
moment of his life and ask, Where is he ? What is he doing ? 

He is at home. He is dependent on the family life for 
his infant existence; or he is helping to make the home, to 
carry on its activities; or he is just enjoying the fruits of 
those activities and the family relationships; or perhaps he 
is trying to endure them or to escape from them. At all 
events, he is at home. 

Or he is at work. His work may or may not contribute 
to the support of the home, but we say we have found him at 
work rather than at home when his mind is bent, for the time, 
not on his part in the family life, but on his job. He is 
trying to do some bit of the work of the world, either for its 
own sake, or for the reward its accomplishment will bring 
him, or because he is driven to it. Small boy or full grown 
man, stock broker or engine stoker, he is at work. 

Or he is at play. Riding his bicycle, driving his car, 
playing Indians or dolls, on the beach, at the "movies" or the 
opera, on the foot-ball field or the playground, — somewhere 
he is looking, or listening, or putting forth his own effort, 
all for the pure pleasure of it or for the recreation of his 
powers of mind or body. He is at play. 



The Opportunity of the Elementary School 7 

Or he is in society. Not necessarily is he now at a so-called 
society function, though he may be at such; but quite as 
likely he is seated with one other on a bench in the park, or 
he is in the midst of a crowd of boys on a street corner. He 
may be " chumming/ ' he may be courting, or he may be 
"grappling a friend to his soul with hoops of steel," but 
somewhere and somehow he is seeking and enjoying the 
companionship of his kind. He is in the field of social inter- 
course. 

Or he is in organized association. That is, in school or in 
church, in boy scout activities or club meeting, in the jury 
box or at the polls, he is playing his part in the organized 
effort by which the community secures for itself the larger 
opportunities that individual effort alone could not compass. 
He is in organized community life. 

If, then, every child, as well as every man and woman, 
is to be found at each hour of his life living and acting in one 
or another of these fields of citizenship, it must be the func- 
tion of the school not only to educate for citizenship, but also 
to educate in citizenship. It further appears that the earlier 
grades of the elementary school have by no means the least 
important part of this work to do. 

The life of the young child is of course lived mainly in the 
fields of the home and of play; but he has some tasks to per- 
form, some social contacts outside of family life, and as soon 
as he enters school, at least, he has more or less conscious 
part in an organization. These, five fields of interests and 
activities are not as distinctly differentiated in his case as 
in that of the adult citizen, but as he grows to maturity, the 
differentiation becomes gradually more marked, and an 
increasing share of his life is found in the fields of work and 
of organized community life, while the field of social inter- 
course is especially important in the periods of dawning and 
early manhood and womanhood. 



8 Citizenship In School and Out 

At any stage in the individual's life a single activity may 
be concerned with more than one field of citizenship; for 
instance, a boy doing an errand for his mother may be 
thought of as performing work and also as taking part in the 
home life. The classification of relationships and activities 
at which we have arrived does not exhibit five mutually 
exclusive fields, but rather shows five fields which merge 
into one another as different phases of life are always bound 
to do, since the life of the individual has a unity more con- 
stant and essential than all its variety. Nevertheless, in 
spite of the overlapping of these fields of citizenship, their 
recognition is helpful in the planning of even the young 
child's education in citizenship; for if this is to be well 
rounded, each and every one of these fields must receive the 
teacher's attention, at one or another time and in due pro- 
portion. 

Training in citizenship, if it is to produce effects which are 
genuine and lasting, must begin at least with the beginning 
of the child's school life and continue at least throughout its 
entire course. The necessity for prolonged and continuous 
training results from the very nature of the undertaking, 
which consists largely of bringing about certain attitudes of 
mind and forming certain traits of character and habits of 
action. These are necessarily matters of slow growth. The 
child must come gradually into a consciousness of his social 
relationships in each of the five fields of citizenship, must 
realize the common interests and the interdependence of 
action which exist between himself and those with whom he 
lives and works and plays. He must finally awaken to the 
perception that government in a democracy is but the means 
by which these common interests are attained and this inter- 
dependence is made to help more than to hinder. 

Since he is being educated as a citizen of a democracy, 
not as a subject of an autocracy, he must be especially 



The Opportunity of the Elementary School g 

encouraged to develop as much individual initiative as he is 
capable of. At the same time he must acquire through 
practice the indispensable civic habit of cooperation. His 
civic intelligence must be gradually increased through the 
gaining of information and the training of his judgment. 
Finally, he must be aided to form social ideals which shall be 
both incentives and guides to his action in civic matters. 

In the recent advance which has been made in the use of 
sound methods of teaching civics, chief attention has been 
paid to work in the upper grades of the elementary school 
and in the high school. It is worth while to examine what 
methods of training in civic traits and habits, and of culti- 
vating civic intelligence and ideals, are especially appropriate 
to the earlier grades of our school system. 

It appears self-evident that the trait of character which is 
needed perhaps above all others by the citizens of a democ- 
racy, that is, the power of initiative, cannot be developed if 
the children act always under direction or even suggestion. 
They must be allowed sometimes to act upon their own 
initiative; and such action can be expected to be successful 
only when the situation in which they are placed is a situation 
suitable to a child at that stage of growth, and when the 
choice which they are given is a choice natural for a child 
of that age to consider. The appropriate situation to give 
a child opportunity to develop the power of initiative which 
we admire in the leading citizens of any community is some 
situation in which the child citizen naturally finds himself, 
and which he can use to make himself an active, influential 
member of his own group, most often of boy and girl citizens. 

The lack of opportunity for such self-activity in those 
schoolrooms where obedience to authority is the chief prin- 
ciple emphasized may well account for the fact that the most 
successful pupils, judged by the ranking they attain, are by 
no means certain to be found in later life among the most 



io Citizenship In School and Out 

useful and influential members of the community. Children 
who are naturally the most docile and imitative make the 
readiest response to authority, and hence are the most success- 
ful where the requirements are mastery of subject matter 
taught by authority, and unquestioning obedience to rules 
laid down by the powers that be. On the other hand, the 
children with the greatest capacity for initiative and self- 
direction ? finding in the school life small outlet for their self- 
activity, turn their main attention to matters outside of 
school. In this way they often secure for themselves such 
practical education in the various fields of social life as en- 
ables them to excel, in later life, the mature achievements 
of the citizens who took the prizes of their school days. The 
school, however, has in such cases lost its opportunity to 
make the most of the best material for citizenship in a democ- 
racy. It has neglected to encourage in its pupils of greatest 
promise the practice of initiative guided by useful social 
ideals, and has left to chance the cultivation and direction of 
this most desirable civic trait. 

To work successfully for the formation of the habit of 
cooperation, or of any other useful civic habit, we must 
remind ourselves that we cannot be certain of the persistence 
of habits formed in any matters in which the children have 
not a natural, live, personal interest. Habits formed by 
indifferent compliance with outside authority or suggestion 
are not always permanently useful habits. They often break 
down when the outside influence is removed, as is indicated 
by the entire absence from the behavior of many grown 
persons of habits which were practiced through all the years 
of their school-life; for instance, the " habit of promptness" 
or the " habit of writing painstakingly." Many a teacher 
has been disappointed to find that some former pupil has 
broken the good habits over whose painful formation she had 
conscientiously labored. Perhaps she had omitted to secure 



The Opportunity of the Elementary School n 

at any stage of the process of habit formation the " inner 
consent/' as the psychologists call it, the reasoned conviction 
of the pupil that the habit is good, or to associate with it any 
strong feeling favorable to its retention. Such convictions 
and feelings can, of course, be most easily secured in connec- 
tion with matters in which the children have a natural and 
lively interest. 

In the effort to increase children's intelligence in social 
or civic matters the teacher is sometimes tempted to begin by 
giving information which has perhaps been carefully prepared 
to reach their understanding, but which does not touch their 
interest, because it seems to them remote, belongs in a world 
which concerns only grown-ups, hence is easily forgotten. 
We may well borrow a hint in this newer line of teaching 
from the methods which have proved so successful in teach- 
ing elementary science, or nature study, and instead of giving 
the children information, let them discover it for them- 
selves through experience and observation, until the matter 
becomes real enough and interesting enough to lead them 
to question the teacher. Enrichment of experience and train- 
ing of observation in each of the five fields of citizenship 
are more useful to young children than is any study of facts 
collected for them by another, and such information as does 
come to them through their own activities and questions will 
be a lasting possession and the best sort of foundation for 
the more systematic study of civics which they will be ready 
for a few years later. The teacher's share in much that the 
children are doing and her part in the conversation, when 
they are talking it all over together, constitute, of course, 
her opportunity to help them to interpret the meaning of 
their experiences and to cultivate the power of judgment. 
To attempt to train the power of judgment by exercising it 
upon adult citizens' problems is a vain effort. The children 
may master from the pages of a civil government, or of a town 



12 Citizenship In School and Out 

report, the facts involved; but it does not follow that they 
perceive the relations .of these facts, and it is in the actual per- 
ception and comparison of relations that the exercise of the 
judgment takes place. The problem, then, which we select 
for the purpose of training the child's judgment in social 
matters must be each and every time a child's problem, all 
its factors and conditions familiarly known to him, and its 
solution of some real concern to him. 

When we come to examine the process by which ideals, 
especially social ideals, take shape in the minds of children, 
or indeed in any minds, we come, of course, to an immensely 
difficult inquiry. It is by no means a simple matter to give 
conscious and direct aid in this process. Older persons who 
attempt to recall the help that they have received from 
parents, teachers, and friends commonly report that it has 
been largely indirect, and on the part of the giver, uncon- 
scious. No doubt direct and clear instruction in matters of 
right and wrong, and also such exercises as the learning of 
" memory gems," have their place. But is it not evident 
that, like sermons and " inspirational literature" in the case 
of grown people, they are effective only when the learner, 
through his own experience and thinking thereon, has almost 
reached the same conclusion that the teacher puts into con- 
vincing and inspiring words? As for stories from the real 
life of to-day, from history, and from fiction, they are indeed 
most potent to suggest ideals, provided only that they are 
not spoiled by the forced statement of a moral, and that the 
experiences of the characters therein are not too unlike the 
children's own to reach their understanding, and so furnish 
materials for their imagination to use. " The necessity of 
the interaction of the near and the far follows directly from 
the nature of thinking," and there is "need for both imagina- 
tion and observation in every mental enterprise." * If we 

* Dewey's How We Think, pp. 222, 223. The italics are mine. 



The Opportunity of the Elementary School 13 

accept these statements, must we not, when we are trying to 
show the children ideals, stand with them on the plane of 
their own experience, in order that they may look about them 
and observe the "near" and compare with it the "far" 
which, by aid of their constructive imagination, we are pre- 
senting to them ? Is not this the only way in which we can 
bring about the "interaction" and so help the children to 
the actual possession of that complex result of thinking which 
we call an ideal? 

We are brought always to the same conclusion; whatever 
characteristic of the grown citizen we are trying to foster in 
the growing citizen, we find that the reasonable procedure is 
to use for our purpose the circumstances in which the child 
is naturally placed and the material which his own interest 
indicates is appropriate to his growth at that particular stage 
in his existence. 

Though this conclusion will force us to postpone till 
the later years of the elementary school any systematic 
instruction from a text book, yet we shall find no reason for 
discouragement in lack of opportunity or of material for our 
work. The children are, even at the moment of entering the 
first grade of the elementary school, already citizens with 
important social relationships and live social interests in each 
of the fields of citizenship which we have noticed above. If 
we can bring these interests and activities into the school and 
make them the basis of such study and discussion as will 
awake in the children consciousness of their social relation- 
ships with their present resulting responsibilities and oppor- 
tunities, and can at the same time give them scope for putting 
into practice whatever useful notions they develop, we may 
surely wait with confidence for the years to bring the gradual 
change of intelligent and good child citizens into intelligent 
and good citizens of a larger growth. In this exercise from 
day to day of all the functions of citizenship which are already 



14 Citizenship In School and Out 

theirs, occasion will often arise for them to acquire such 
information regarding government and other social arrange- 
ments as will be useful both then and later in life, and nearly 
all studies of the elementary school curriculum can in all 
grades be laid under contribution to this end. However, 
even in the higher grades, where definite time is set apart for 
instruction in what is ordinarily termed civics, we cannot 
hope to teach all the facts a knowledge of which will be 
needed for the discharge of all the duties of citizenship in 
mature life. We may, however, do better than this if 
throughout the years of school life we help the children to 
such an attitude toward society and to such mental habits 
that both now and in the future, as occasions arise, they will 
feel the need of information, acquire it easily, and put it to 
good uses. 



CHAPTER II 

The Daily Program oj the Elementary School 

It is entirely conceivable that in this period of readjust- 
ment upon which we are entering at the close of the war, 
the reconstruction of our elementary school system may go so 
far as to discard the conventional daily program of study and 
recitation and reorganize the day's work on a different basis. 
Such reorganization has in fact already been begun in a num- 
ber of schools throughout the country. It appears to have 
been undertaken in a larger number of instances, so far, in 
those schools where the problems of administration have been 
simplest, and the authorities have been freest to consider 
the requirements of the most modern principles of education: 
witness the practice schools connected with normal schools or 
schools of education in several States, a few private experi- 
mental schools, and public rural schools in certain fortunate 
districts. The new basis of organization is thus described in 
a bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education (1915, No. 
17), and here it is work in a city system of schools that is 
the example. "The aim in the Indianapolis elementary 
schools seems to be to make of education not a process of in- 
struction in a variety of subjects , but a process of living, of 
growth, during which the various relations of life are un- 
folded — civic, geographical, historical, ethical, vocational, 
etc. In the first grade, for example, the pupil does not even 
study £ English' or 'language'; he merely does things, and 
talks about things, and hears and tells stories about things, 
the teacher alone being conscious that she is giving the child 



1 6 Citizenship In School and Out 

his first organized lessons in civic life as well as in the English 
language." 

This aim is freely pursued by the most progressive teachers 
and supervisors in that school system in spite of the fact that 
the course of study for the Indianapolis schools is made up 
from the standpoint of the "subjects" of the curriculum. 

In schools where the work is thus planned primarily to meet 
the demands of the children's physical and mental growth, 
and secondarily to impart certain graded portions of informa- 
tion and degrees of skill in the subjects selected for the curri- 
culum, the conventional daily program tends to lose its 
rigidity or to disappear entirely. 

Such changes are not made, however, in a day; and at 
the present time it is true that in a large majority of the 
schools of the country one finds a program which divides 
the school day into a certain number of brief periods of time 
and assigns each period to the study or recitation of a differ- 
ent subject. It is true also that many teachers who hold 
the aim in education which has been referred to in connection 
with the schools of Indianapolis are able to plan their work 
satisfactorily in accordance with a program of this sort. 
They exercise, however, a wise discretion in following its 
requirements. If the needs or real interests of the children 
at any time demand a substitution of some other school 
exercise for the one indicated by the program, the substitu- 
tion is made, and on a later occasion the " borrowed" minutes 
are " returned" that no " subject" may be defrauded of its 
due share of time. 

Teachers who work in this way will have no difficulty in 
using the lessons that are suggested in the following pages, 
for nearly all of these were originally worked out in a school 
which does make use of a program, though one of a very 
flexible type. Although some of the lessons are appropriate 
for use in a period labeled "Civics," yet in schools where 



The Daily Program of the Elementary School 17 

that name does not appear on the program of work prescribed 
for the first six grades, place can still be found for all the 
training in citizenship here suggested. It needs only that 
advantage frequently be taken of the minutes which, after 
the devotional exercises, are usually given to opening school 
in the morning; that all the time appropriated to history be 
utilized; that the social side of geography be not neglected; 
that in a due proportion of the periods set down for drawing, 
language, and oral reading the subject matter upon which 
these arts of expression are practiced be of a character 
socially useful; and that no activities of the industrial hour, 
of the playground, of school entertainments, or the like, be 
left outside the teacher's scheme of civic education. 

The following chapters are intended to illustrate the kind 
of work that is done by teachers who have the point of view 
indicated in the preceding chapter. They may be of use in 
suggesting answers to certain questions which teachers often 
have occasion to ask themselves, familiar questions like 
these: — What subject shall I take for morning exercises 
to-morrow ? Where shall I find a story or a poem which puts 
concretely this or that idea which I wish to bring home to the 
children? What topic shall I propose for the oral language 
lesson to-day, or for the composition which must be written? 
What stories shall I recommend to the children for reading 
in spare minutes at school or at home? What projects in 
industrial work appeal to children of this age or of that? 
What kind of entertainments is it worth while to plan for 
Friday afternoons ? What is the point in teaching this part 
of the history to the children, or what other part would have 
more meaning for them ? What special features would it be 
well to emphasize in the conduct of the school club ? What 
" center of interest" can I find for the coming week or month 
which will supply a motive for most, if not all, of the " regular 
studies," and will set the children to work on real problems? 



1 8 Citizenship In School and Out 

Under each of the five fields of the children's social interests 
and activities there is suggested in the following chapters 
one or more means by which the teacher may cultivate that 
field. These means are designated by the Roman numerals. 
The numbering of them does not, however, indicate that they 
should be used in any fixed order. On the contrary, all of the 
means of social education appropriate to any one grade must be 
kept in mind all of the time, and each means used, and used 
again, whenever that one seems to the teacher the most available 
and effective one for that week, day, or hour. 

To superintendents and teachers who are already at work 
with the aims and in the spirit which this manual attempts 
to embody, it may perhaps bring some support in the effort 
to systematize such work without destroying the vitality of 
it. Experience proves that it is difficult to keep work of this 
kind incidental, responsive to the needs of the moment, with- 
out letting it lapse into being accidental, neglected unless 
brought forward by chance. This outline may be an aid in 
avoiding this Scylla and that Charybdis, (i) by its recogni- 
tion of the five fields of citizenship in some one of which the 
child's life of the moment is always to be found, and (2) by 
its enumeration of certain of the means by which this life may 
be touched and helped in each of these fields and at each 
stage of the child's early education. 

To inexperienced teachers, and to students preparing to 
teach, it is hoped that this sketch of work may be of interest, 
not only as a study of some things actually being done in 
schools committed to the modern point of view in education, 
but also as an invitation to an enterprise of no mean worth 
to our democracy, the social leadership of a group of children 
who are practicing citizenship in school and out. 



CHAPTER III 

Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 

Notice a group of children anywhere who are showing 
lively interest in any way, — watching intently, asking 
questions, trying to plan, to execute, or to help, giving vent 
to enthusiastic exclamation or earnest wish. Edge your 
way toward the inner circle of the group to discover what is 
the cause of all this interest, and ninety-nine times out of a 
hundred, you will find at the center some activity taking 
place; in the expressive phrase of the day, there is " something 
doing" here. Only the hundredth time will you find at the 
center of the group an individual holding forth to the children, 
and in such case he is either explaining how something may 
be done, or he is telling by story or picture about something 
which has been done. 

On observations such as these, touching the free life of 
children outside school hours, is based the effort to have in the 
life of our primary schools throughout the year first one and 
then another plan of activity present and prominent, a center 
of interest which shall draw to itself the group of lively, 
questioning children, shall hold them by its common appeal, 
and shall teach them, through the answers and the thinking 
and the doing involved, those lessons in the various subjects 
which are required by the school curriculum. 

The teacher's part is, of course, first to find these centers 
of interest, — a series of them which shall profitably occupy 
the time throughout the school year, and then to help the 
children to derive from these, not only those valuable lessons 

19 . 



20 Citizenship In School and Out 

about persons and things and their relations that are some- 
times named geography, nature study, history, and civics, 
but also at least a motive and the occasion for the more formal 
lessons which impart skill in reading, writing, language, 
drawing, and arithmetic. 

In the selection of centers of interest the teacher has to 
consider what the children of her own school are doing and 
thinking about at home and on the playground or the street, 
as well as in the school-room ; has to decide also what are the 
most profitable of those interests to choose for emphasis in the 
work of the school. From the very nature of the case, it fol- 
lows that no course of study can be constructed which will 
entirely meet these requirements for more than one school or 
for more than one year in that school. The ideal course of 
study varies as classes of children vary in home surroundings, 
in race inheritance, in community influence, and the rest; 
varies also from year to year as the events of school, neigh- 
borhood, or national life which claim the children's attention 
vary with the changing years. 

In the months while we bore our part in the recent war, to 
cite a striking example, rapidly moving events of an unfore- 
seen character created for children, as well as for their elders, 
certain totally new interests and occupations. No course of 
study had made provision for school work connected with 
Junior Red Cross activities, War Saving Stamp drives, food 
saving, or the like. Yet these new and absorbing matters 
could not be ignored by any school without great loss to the 
children. Fortunate were the teachers who taught through 
those days in schools whose work was dominated, not by a 
fixed course of study, but by the purpose always to utilize the 
interests which actually engage the children at any given 
time. Fortunate, too, are those teachers now, as the in- 
terests of war give way to those of peace and reconstruction; 
for they can still take advantage of the changing situation 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 21 

and help the children to derive from it its full educational 
value. 

The responsibility of determining the year's program must 
rest largely with the teacher. No printed outline can pre- 
scribe in advance material as rich in opportunity for useful 
work as her close contact with the situation enables her to 
choose. No superintendent can suggest one half of all the 
occasions which her intimate acquaintance with the children 
inspires her to utilize. 

It is possible, however, to discover a few general principles 
which apply in considering the work of all our primary schools. 
There are two certainties upon which we may base our efforts 
to outline a course of study for any American school. 

We know, in the first place, that there are certain natural 
interests common to childhood in all parts of the world, and 
certain other interests, traditional we might call them, com- 
mon to nearly all American communities. An example of 
children's natural interests is the observation and imitation 
of grown-ups as they go about their every day w T ork of house, 
field, office, or shop; and an example of traditional com- 
munity interests is the celebration of historic holidays. 
Instruction, therefore, which starts with an interest of either 
of these types wall be availing itself of a point of contact with 
the minds of children in any of our schools. 

We know, in the second place, that in each of the five fields 
of social life (see Chapter I) there are certain personal traits, 
certain attitudes of mind and habits of action, which are 
characteristic of good citizenship, the child's good citizen- 
ship, and, no less, the good citizenship of the grown man or 
woman. Two or three, at least, in each field we can mention 
without fear of controversy. At home, unselfishness, sym- 
pathy, and loyalty make for the usefulness and integrity of 
that institution, as well as for the happiness of its members. 
In work, the power of initiative and a sense of personal re- 



22 Citizenship In School and Out 

sponsibility, combined with a sense of interdependence and 
habits of cooperation, make for efficiency and progress. In 
play, ideals of clean and healthful sport, the exercise of the 
imagination, and habits of cooperation make for actual 
re-creation for both individual and community. In social 
intercourse, self-respect and self-control, respect for worth in 
others regardless of externals, generosity, chivalry, and the 
capacity for real friendship make for a healthy and demo- 
cratic state of society. Finally, in organized community 
life, the habit of active participation and cooperation, a 
sense of individual responsibility, a conception of law as the 
will of the community, and of government as the means of 
getting this will realized make for welfare and progress, not 
only in the life of the school and in all matters of the local 
community, but also in affairs of national or even inter- 
national scope. Hence it appears reasonable that any effec- 
tual course in citizenship in any school must provide oppor- 
tunities for the practice of such habits as these and must 
foster the growth of such characteristics. 

Starting with these two certainties and using their impli- 
cations as guiding lines, it is possible to compile a list of 
centers of interest for each grade which may be used in any 
American school as a source of suggestion for the teacher in 
her work of planning the course in civics for the year. It 
cannot be too much emphasized that these lists must be re- 
garded only as types which are to be modified by the peculiar 
demands of each and every class of children. 

Lest it be objected that many of the centers of interest 
mentioned in the following enumeration are taken from other 
" subjects' ' than "civics"; as, for instance, nature study or 
industrial work, it is necessary to explain that it is an essential 
feature of the plan of civic education which is here advocated 
to use in training for citizenship whatever, in any subject or 
in any activity, has social value or significance. 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 23 

It is self-evident that there can be no clear line of de- 
markation between the grades of school work called "pri- 
mary" and those called "intermediate." There can be no 
fixed day or month or year when every child of that age 
changes from one set of interests and activities to another set 
and is appealed to by entirely different methods of instruc- 
tion. It is nevertheless true that most children do pass, 
between the ages of eight and ten years, through important 
changes in their tastes and their normal occupations — 
changes which must be reckoned with in planning their school 
work. In the earlier years the work — which is largely 
laying foundations in experience and training the senses — 
can be organized almost wholly about the series of situations 
in which the children find themselves successively placed by 
the ordinary incidents of daily living. In the later years 
more consideration must be given to grading the processes by 
which certain information and certain skill shall be imparted. 

And so it happens that the lessons of this manual, which 
have been worked out with children in the first six years of 
school life, fall naturally into two sets of three grades each, 
the first set prefaced by this discussion of Centers of Interest, 
and the second set prefaced by a discussion of Courses of 
Study in the Intermediate Grades (Chapter VII) . 

In spite of this division, however, we must admit that 
standards established by well tested courses of study should 
have their influence over the formal side of work in the prim- 
ary grades. We must also recognize that the "doctrine of 
centers of interest" may not safely be forgotten by teachers 
of the intermediate grades. 

The First Year in School 

In the pleasant fall days of the opening weeks of school it 
is desirable to plan work that will take the children out of 
doors occasionally, perhaps twice a week, for one or two 



24 Citizenship In School and Out 

periods beside their regular recesses. This will not be 
practicable during the first few days of school, but by the 
second week the teacher knows the children well enough to 
make the venture a comfortable one. Even though the 
school work is governed by a daily program which divides the 
time into brief periods, each labeled with the name of some 
subject of study, the invitation to a walk which is given by 
the beauty of a bright September day need not be denied. 
The teacher appropriates for the walk the fifteen minutes 
marked on the program " nature study," to this time she adds 
another fifteen minutes borrowed from some other study, the 
"drawing," perhaps (for how can children draw till they have 
been taught to observe accurately, and is this not a tour of 
observation upon which they are bound?), and in the half 
hour now at her disposal she gives valuable training to the 
children's senses and at the same time awakens some definite 
interest which shall become a center from which other school 
work shall lead out in radiating lines for several days to come. 
Perhaps a spot is found in which golden-rod is growing. 
The children may be asked to notice how tall the stalks are 
and how like queens they look, bending and nodding above 
the other flowers g owing near; then to stand near some of 
the tallest stalks and see if there is any one as tall as one of 
the class. Now they are allowed to pick the flowers at their 
pleasure, being cautioned only not to make them less like 
" queen flowers" by breaking the stems too short. While 
they are picking, such questions as these are raised: What 
color is golden-rod? What other flowers are the same color? 
What kind of stem makes the flower stand so tall? Is the 
stem stiff near the top, where the flower bends over? At 
what time of year does golden-rod blossom? These questions 
are not all answered on the spot; but they set the children to 
thinking, also to watching, as they return, for other flowers 
that are yellow, others that are tall or have stiff stems, etc. 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 25 

After the return to the school-room the children count the 
stalks and arrange them in several vases: — three in this vase; 
four in that one; as many (counted) as will look pretty in this 
large one; etc. Then put the vase with five in it on the 
teacher's desk; the one with four in it on the table; etc. 
The first period after the return has gone like a flash, and 
the " number lesson 7 ' has been given. In the reading class it 
is made plain that there are two words in the name, golden- 
rod; what the meaning of each word is, and why someone 
gave the name to the flower. Finally the children learn to 
recognize the name written on the black-board. For the 
" language lesson" the children are helped to tell in good clear 
sentences something about the height of the golden-rod com- 
pared with their own; to say so tall (not that tall), and to use 
taller and tallest. Or, it may be, the words standing, bending, 
and nodding are dwelt upon; the action of different children 
is suited to different words, and preparation is made for to- 
morrow's " drawing lesson" in which the children learn to 
represent a bending stem. The subject readily suggests other 
conversations, which though informal, do give the children 
practice in certain expressions of which they need to gain 
fuller and more exact use. These conversations are easily 
given the turn which leads naturally to a lesson in reading 
or drawing or color. 

In short, from this walk has come suggestion and a basis 
in experience for most of the regular lessons until it is time, 
two or three days later, for another little excursion. There 
are likely to be physical activities, music lessons, and perhaps 
other exercises, which are called for by the program, but 
which are not related to this center of interest. It is never 
desirable to force a correlation. This other work comes in on 
its own merits, affording the children a change from the main 
interest of the day or week. 

The next walk may be taken with intent to seek out and 



26 Citizenship In School and Out 

learn to recognize the commonest birds of the vicinity, or 
later, to collect the bright colored leaves that are falling, or 
perhaps to find nuts or fall berries. The situation of the 
school-house, no doubt, as well as the course laid down in 
nature study, must govern the objects sought in these walks; 
but no country school is without rich material at hand, and 
few city schools are now without grounds of their own or 
access to some park, open square, or tree-lined street. 

To sum up, this practice of taking the children out for 
several walks during the early weeks of the school year, has 
these advantages : It makes less irksome the change from the 
active out-door life which many of the children have led 
through the summer, to the quieter, more confined life of the 
school-room; it is the beginning of elementary plant and bird 
study; and in the knowledge of directions and distances which 
the children gain, there is a natural introduction to geo- 
graphy; finally, it provides a series of centers of interest for 
the lessons of these weeks in number, reading, language, 
drawing, and color. For the social and civic training in- 
volved, see pages 40-42. 

In October, when the children have had time to become 
acquainted with each other, with the teacher, and with their 
new surroundings, the center of interest chosen may well be 
the house-keeping play described on pages 35-39. On pages 
35-36 the social value of this activity is suggested. On pages 
36-37 attention is called to the way in which language lessons, 
story-telling, drawing, number lessons, singing, and reading 
are all carried on at the same time that this play is being 
introduced into the program two or three times a week; and 
it there appears how closely these lessons are connected with 
the play, deriving their motive and their material from it. 
The work is lent variety by the drills and games which mean- 
time serve their purpose of impressing number and language 
facts by means of repetition. It is enriched by the stories, 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 27 

poems, and songs which are told or recited by the teacher, 
talked over with her, illustrated, committed to memory, 
perhaps, or told again, sung, or acted by the children. So 
varied and so enriched, this w 7 ork may profitably be con- 
tinued for a month or more. The attention of the school 
will then be centered on some other form of activity, but much 
that has been emphasized in this work will be brought for- 
ward again and again in the course of the year. 

Perhaps next in order a Hallowe'en party w T ill absorb all 
the children's interest for two or three days, giving a good 
opportunity for lessons in paper cutting, in color, and in 
language. The social value in such parties is suggested on 
pages 40-42. 

By this time the children feel very much at home in their 
new surroundings, and may now have their attention turned 
to the routine activities by which the school-room, coat- 
room, etc., are kept in order, material for work is distributed 
and collected, the pupils are summoned and dismissed, and 
in general, the order of the day is carried through. They 
may well be admitted into as large a share in conducting this 
routine business as they are capable of taking with happy 
pride. See pages 48-49. There is an excellent chance here 
for number work, oral language, and black-board reading. 
It is for only a short time, a week perhaps, that this interest 
is made prominent enough to serve as a "center" for lessons, 
but like the subject of home life, this interest, once introduced 
into the school work, is never again wholly ignored, and the 
training begun this week continues throughout the year. 

There may be time before Thanksgiving for the introduc- 
tion of another project, the fitting up of one corner of the room 
as a " children's corner." The furnishings may be simple 
and few 7 , no more than a low table with several picture books 
and two or three games on it. If a bright colored rug, a 
flowering plant, and a picture hung low on the wall can be 



28 Citizenship In School and Out 

added, all the better. In any event, if the children are 
allowed to make suggestions as to the arrangement of the fur- 
nishings, and as to some of the pleasant things which can be 
done in this corner by those who satisfactorily finish ahead 
of time the ordinary work at their, seats, they will become 
much interested in the project, and the teacher will find an 
opening for lively language, spelling, and number lessons, 
and for study of color and form. That the children shall 
have the responsibility for keeping this corner in good order 
is worth while, as is suggested on pages 48-49. 

For a week before Thanksgiving Day the work indicated on 
page 46 is naturally the prominent feature of the school life. 
After this holiday is past, all thoughts are fixed on the fast 
approaching season of Christmas, and the gifts which the 
children plan and make with the teacher's help not only 
furnish material for the lessons in hand- work, but also suggest 
the most fascinating themes of conversation, song, and story. 

On returning to school after the Christmas holidays it is 
natural for the children to talk about the presents which 
they have received and bring some of them to show the 
teacher and each other. Here, then, are subjects ready to 
hand for the language, reading, and number lessons. Janu- 
ary, when so much of the time is likely to be spent indoors, is 
a good month also for considering what teacher and pupils 
together can do to make and to keep the school-room attrac- 
tive. Not only the children's corner, in which they have 
already been interested, but the entire room is brought to 
their attention. Pictures on the walls are talked over, and 
sometimes new ones are added. How the children's drawing 
and the other hand-work can be most attractively displayed 
is discussed. The very best place for a new plant is carefully 
considered. Neatness and order are emphasized, and the 
help of the children is enlisted to secure these. In all these 
matters there is opportunity for training the children's 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 29 

powers of observation and of expression, for increasing their 
ability to count and measure, and best of all, for cultivating 
appreciation of clean and attractive surroundings. 

It may be at this time of year (though not necessarily at 
this time) that there occur opportunities, such as are sug- 
gested on page 53, to interest the children of a city school 
in dramatizing the theme, " Getting and Giving Help on a 
City Street." Even though these scenes are acted mainly in 
pantomime, yet each one must be carefully talked over with 
the teacher, in such fashion as is indicated on page 54, before 
the play can begin. These conversations constitute " lan- 
guage work," and out of them grow naturally black-board 
lessons in reading and spelling and perhaps in drawing. The 
civic lessons that may be impressed on the little actors are 
discussed on pages 52, 54. 

In February there is a chance to relate much of the school 
work to the celebration of three days: Lincoln's Birthday, 
St. Valentine's Day, and Washington's Birthday. Language 
and music lessons give the preparation for two of these days 
which is suggested on pages 46, 47. Paper-cutting, drawing, 
writing, reading, and language work are all involved in the 
making and exchanging of the pretty valentines in which the 
children take such pleasure, and which set a different stand- 
ard of taste from many of the cheap affairs that attract their 
attention in the shop windows. 

A school-room party is a project which h well suited to 
early March, and the proposal of which is received by the 
children with much enthusiasm. They like to dictate the 
invitations which the teacher writes for them to parents and 
younger brothers and sisters. They enjoy planning what 
they shall show their guests, and how they shall entertain 
them with stories, music, and games. And during the week 
or two of happy preparation, they make rapid progress in the 
regular school lessons which this preparation involves. The 



30 Citizenship In School and Out 

lessons which they are at the same time receiving in certain 
qualities of good citizenship are discussed on pages 40-42. 

It may be at this season that some pet animal, a rabbit, 
perhaps, is brought into the school-room to be kept there for 
a few weeks. The children observe and describe its appear- 
ance and its movements, watch and comment on its habits, 
and have a share in giving it the regular daily care which it 
needs. They are thus getting the sort of training suggested 
on pages 48-49, and also are supplied with an interesting 
subject for brush-work or paper-cutting, language and read- 
ing lessons, story telling, and a little incidental number work. 

In April the renewal of life in the out-of-door world brings 
itself here and there to the children's attention, and the 
teacher avails herself of this fact to plan work which shall 
stimulate further interest in plants and animals and give 
further opportunity for work and play in the open air. Such 
observance of Arbor Day as is common in our schools, yields 
its greatest benefits if it is preceded for some days by work 
which directs the children's attention to the trees, shrubs, 
and vines of the vicinity, and to the birds that are beginning 
to build their nests in these. The symbols of the Easter 
season which are brought to the children's notice in church, 
at home, and in the shops, — the butterflies, the colored 
eggs, the profusion of flowers, — all make attractive subjects 
for simple " nature lessons." Here again it is easy to con- 
trive lessons in which gain in power to observe, to count, and 
to measure goes step by step with gain in ability to express 
ideas through language and drawing. 

Making May-baskets and getting ready for the May Day 
frolic on the lawn or in the woods, with its songs, action plays, 
and dances, gives a lively turn to the work of the school for 
a week or two before the celebration of the spring festival 
usually permitted by the weather sometime during the month 
of May. The liveliness of the work, however, does not 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 31 

interfere at all with its value as physical culture, or as training 
in music and drawing, language and reading, and the selection 
of colors. 

By this time in the year the children are familiar enough 
with the routine of the school day to be interested in planning 
with the teacher how to introduce variety into the exercises 
with which the morning session is opened, and to enjoy taking 
a more active part than before in these exercises. The 
children are separated into groups; each group in turn has 
private consultations with the teacher and is given some share 
in the responsibility and the leadership of the entire class for 
that first period in the day. This is equivalent to special 
lessons in music, story-telling, picture-study, physical exer- 
cises, etc., — all taken with particular zest because of the 
chance to surprise the other children with the results. The 
help that such exercises may give in development of group 
consciousness is noticed on pages 51-52. 

Preparing to celebrate Decoration Day as suggested on 
pages 47-48, will supply a motive for most of the work in the 
last week of May. The rehearsal of the flag drill involves 
counting and physical culture, while learning the songs means 
not only music lessons, but a combination of language and 
reading lessons to give mastery of the words which are set to 
the music. 

In June there is time before the close of school for one more 
" party," and what word is dearer to childish fancy? Again 
home friends are asked, but this time the children themselves 
write the invitations and have a larger share than before in 
planning and conducting the entertainment. If it is prac- 
ticable to have this party out of doors and to let the children 
help prepare sandwiches, or other simple refreshments, and 
serve their guests to these, their cup of pleasure will be filled 
to the brim. The civic training involved is suggested on 
pages 40-42. 



32 Citizenship In School and Out 

The last of the special days to be celebrated during the 
school year is likely to be the fourteenth of June. The 
manner of celebrating is indicated on page 48. The study of 
number, drawing, and language involved in the study of the 
design of the flag is obvious, and other lessons like those 
preceding Decoration Day are given in rehearsing drills and 
songs. On pages 44-45 are discussed the reasons for con- 
sidering the observance of this day, and of all holidays 
mentioned in this chapter, an important factor in civic 
education. 

The Second Year in School 

On the pages immediately preceding this there is not only 
suggested a succession of " centers of interest' ' which it is 
possible to utilize in the first grade, but also there is shown 
in considerable detail, for the convenience of those teachers 
who have not been accustomed to organize their work in this 
way, the manner in which the "regular lessons" of the school 
may be brought into relation with these "centers." This 
makes it unnecessary to treat the work of the second and 
third grades in the same detail, both because the general 
method of organizing the work is the same, and because 
many of the centers around which it is organized are identical. 
There is not, of course, much change in the typical interests 
of children in the first three years of school life. The change 
which marks their progress comes in their better grasp of 
more matters connected with these interests, and in their 
increased skill in reading, writing, and the like. This latter 
change is taken account of in the chapters which suggest 
specific lessons in citizenship for these years. (Chapters 
V,VI.) 

For the convenience of teachers of the second and third 
grades who have read to this point it will suffice, then, to 
give a list of interests which are commonly found among 



Centers of Interest in the Earlier Grades 33 

children of these ages, and which can be profitably used as 
centers in planning the work of these years, accompanied in 
each instance by a reference to the pages of succeeding chap- 
ters where there is discussion of those lessons in citizenship 
which are involved. It should be repeated, however, that 
such a list will serve its purpose only if it is regarded by the 
teacher not as a prescription, bat rather as a type that may be 
suggestive to her from time to time throughout the year as 
she develops her own plan of work to meet the needs of her 
own group of children. 

A typical list of centers of interest for the second year of 
school is as follows: 

September — Observations made and material collected 
during several walks taken in the vicinity of the school-house 
under the teacher's leadership. See pages 57, 62, 64. 

October — Dramatization and description of the children's 
own home activities. See pages 55-56. A Hallowe'en 
party. See pages 57-58. 

November — The organization and performance of work 
done in " committees" and by " turns" with the purpose of 
leaving the school-room in good order at the close of each 
day's session. See pages 61, 63-64. Preparations for the 
celebration of Thanksgiving Day. See page 60. 

December — Preparations for the celebration of Christmas. 

January — The description and dramatization of Eskimo 
home life. Comparison with the children's own home life. 
See pages 56-57. 

February — Celebration of Lincoln's Birthday, of Valen- 
tine's Day. " Playing Postman." Celebration of Wash- 
ington's Birthday. See pages 60-61, 64-65. 

March — Making and caring for a window-garden. " Play- 
ing Store." See pages 61-62. 

April — Work in the school garden. See page 62. Prep- 
arations for the celebration of Arbor Day and of May Day. 



34 Citizenship In School and Out 

May — Gathering flowers and arranging them in the 
school-room. Taking the part of the teacher in conducting 
the class. See pages 63-64. Celebration of Decoration Day. 

June — Story-telling and dramatizing out of doors. See 
pages 57-58. Celebration of Flag Day. See pages 60-61. 
Getting ready for vacation. 

The Third Year in School 

September — Fall garden work. See pages 69-70. Dram- 
atization of "An Hour in the Park." See pages 77-78. 

October — Dramatization and description of family rela- 
tionships. See pages 66-67. Description and representa- 
tion of Indian home life. See pages 67-68. 

November — Some neighborhood event. See pages 68-69. 
Preparations for the celebration of Thanksgiving. See 
page 71. Dramatization of "An Hour at the Library." 
See pages 77-78. 

December — Keeping the school-room attractive. See 
page 75. The birds' Christmas. See pages 71-72. 

January — Furnishing a doll house. See page 73. 
"Orders of the Day" and "Officers of the Day." See page 

75- 

February — Celebration of Lincoln's Birthday, of Valen- 
tine's Day, and of Washington's Birthday. See page 71. 
Exchange of visits with another grade. See page 69. 

March — Exhibition of hand- work. See page 69. A 
review of "What we have been doing together and how we 
have done it." See pages 75-77. 

April — Raising a family of chickens. See page 73. 
Preparation for the celebration of Arbor Day and May Day. 

May — Making a calendar of flowers or birds. Celebra- 
tion of Decoration Day. See page 71. 

June — Celebration of Flag Day. See page 72. A 
picnic. See pages 69-70. 



CHAPTER IV 

Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 

Citizenship in the Home 

/. Housekeeping Play 

The ability to see the familiar facts of our every-day lives 
in their true relation to one another, to ourselves, and to 
other people, — this is surely one of the chief things for 
which we strive, throughout the entire process of education, 
as long as we live. By bringing into the school-room that 
dearly loved play of childhood, " keeping house," the teacher 
is taking a step toward helping the children to do just this 
thing. This play is, of course, the children's dramatization 
of certain portions of their own lives in their own homes; 
and these familiar scenes, planned for with the teacher, 
acted out by different groups of children in turn, and dwelt 
upon by all in conversation, become the means of making 
vivid and clear impressions of certain essential facts of home 
life in their true relations. 

The teacher's share in this play consists largely in leading 
the children to imitate, and by this imitation of course to 
emphasize, the pleasantest, most essential, and most educa- 
tive features in the daily routine of orderly home life. The 
fact that the children bring a variety of experiences and 
standards from their different homes adds to the value of the 
play and affords the teacher an opportunity to show the 
" sweet reasonableness" of certain practices and to modify 
the children's ideas concerning others less desirable. It is 

35 



36 Citizenship In School and Out 

possible to emphasize many ways in which they may become 
considerate and helpful members of the family, contributing 
here a bit and there a bit to the necessary work of the home, 
to its pleasures, and to the wise and thrifty use of its re- 
sources. 

It would be a mistake, however, to conduct this play as a 
series of object lessons in manners and morals. Such lessons 
would be sure to lose touch with the real thing, the actual 
home life of each child present; and it is only as sincere, 
spontaneous expression is given to this reality that the great- 
est benefit will result. 

This play not only possesses educational value in and of 
itself, but it also proves a very useful center around which to 
organize for a time the other work of the school. It is a live 
subject in the treatment of which the children's powers of 
expression may be developed, and their errors in speech may 
be corrected. The play itself and the conversation lessons 
which naturally grow out of it are appropriately enough 
assigned to any period which on the school program is labeled 
" language." During the weeks that this dramatization is 
filling a part of the time given to language work, other periods 
are devoted to games contrived to confirm the use of the 
correct expressions whose lack has been revealed by these 
conversations about every-day home matters, and still other 
periods are given over to telling stories of home life. These 
stories are often illustrated, by use of brush, pencil, or scissors, 
in the time assigned to "drawing." The play is also useful 
as a basis for black-board reading lessons. The transition 
to reading from a book is made easy by the use of "Little 
Home Workers," by Ida E. Finley, 1 a primer which was 
written while the author was working with children in this 
way. In the midst of the play itself there is a chance for 
some counting when the table is set, the dishes are put away, 

1 Benj. H. Sanborn & Company. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 37 

etc., also for some other use of numbers in the games which 
"the family" play. In order to give drill in these number 
facts to all the children the game may be played for but a 
brief time by the family group alone, then for a longer time 
by the entire class. Thus the period for "number work" is 
occupied. Music lessons too, in the form of lullabies and 
other home songs, contribute their part to this play, and 
take on in turn an added pleasure because of their relation to 
this center of interest. 

The details of this series of play lessons are capable of 
great variation. The following scenes are some of those 
which have been found useful: 

Setting the table. 

Family serving one another. 

Clearing the table. 

Washing the dishes. 

Looking at pictures together, sewing, playing games, etc. 

Welcoming a guest. 
The equipment needed for housekeeping play is not elabor- 
ate. The play serves the purpose better if the school does 
not provide much in the way of outfit. It is desirable to have 
the following: a low table and chairs, such as are usually 
found in a first grade school-room, a dolPs tea-set (one which 
is of fair size and includes knives, forks, and spoons), a white 
table-cloth, six small napkins, two pans, a dish mop, and a 
dish towel. A wooden box set up on end will serve for a cup- 
board, or there may be a shelf conveniently placed. Food 
is not used except as a treat once or twice a year. 

The illustrative lesson given below is the third in a series 
of lessons given two or three times a week and continuing for 
a month or six weeks. The series is introduced by showing 
the children the pretty set of dishes and letting them help 
plan how the corner of the school-room can be turned into a 
play-house (dining room and kitchen). On the second day 



38 Citizenship In School and Out 

the children who are to play the parts of Father, Mother, 
Little Boy, Little Girl, Big Sister, and Grandmother are 
chosen. Upon other days the two last named characters are 
changed. Grandfather, Big Brother, Baby Sister, Our Guest, 
etc., are introduced into the play. In the second lesson all 
the class discuss with the teacher what is needed on the table, 
who will set the table, who will help her, who will arrange the 
vase of flowers, who will set the chairs in place, what Father 
may be doing meantime, who will call him to supper, who will 
draw out Grandma's chair for her, etc. Then the children 
chosen go through the play up to the point of being seated at 
the table. The other children watch the play. 

An Illustrative Lesson 

The same children who played before can to-day set the 
table more rapidly and soon be seated for the meal. This 
" playing tea-party/' with all the other children and the 
teacher looking on, seems a little strange to the children 
the first day that it is attempted, and though they enjoy 
it, they are very quiet. The teacher is obliged to ask ques- 
tions and make suggestions that will help the play along 
and keep the attention of the rest of the class. The children 
sometimes answer her in words, and sometimes merely do 
that which she suggests, showing by their bright faces and 
expressive gestures their pleasure in the doing. Anything 
that they do or say spontaneously is, of course, taken ad- 
vantage of by the teacher in developing the lesson, but in 
the absence of initiative on their part, she shapes the play 
somewhat as follows: "Let us see whom Father will serve 
first." "To whom does Mother offer tea?" "Now has 
everybody either tea or milk and some bread and butter, 
nobody forgotten?" "While the family are eating, perhaps 
Father will tell — " (mentioning some school-room incident). 
"Has this family any dog or cat?" "When is kitty going to 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 39 

be fed?" "Will Mother tell one of the children what to give 
kitty for her supper ?" "Is that the cake plate near Big 
Sister?" "Will she pass it and help herself when it has been 
around the table?" "Isn't it good cake?" "Did Mother 
make it?" "How prettily Big Sister arranged the flowers." 
"Did Little Boy pick them for her?" "Has everybody 
finished eating now, nobody left any good food on his plate?" 
"Then all can leave the table, and Little Girl can feed the 
kitten just as Mother told her." 

As the play is continued on other days, the strangeness 
gradually wears off, the children grow less timid about 
exercising initiative, and the teacher is able to keep herself 
more in the background. She always, however, finds some 
suggestions needed, and she always tries to make such as are 
not unsuitable to the children's own home conditions. There 
is often a demand upon her tact to avoid the chance of any 
child's feeling that the customs of his own home are criti- 
cised. The above lesson is of the sort given in a school where 
most of the children come from homes in which the mothers 
do the housework, and the members of the family serve each 
other at the table. In a school where all the children's 
mothers employ servants, one of the children would 
naturally play the part of the maid, and the service at the 
table would be quite different, of course, but would give, 
perhaps, no less opportunity for thoughtful attention to the 
comfort of others. In a school where both types of homes 
are represented, the lessons can be varied from day to day, 
so that every child shall both recognize familiar customs and 
also learn of those practiced in other homes than his own. 

//. Stories and Poems which Idealize Home Life 

There are certain stories and poems which, though they 
are simple in style and interesting to little children, yet do 
idealize the familiar features of home life and so make felt 



40 Citizenship In School and Out 

something of its deeper, even its spiritual significance. To 
illustrate: 

How the Home was Built, Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

The Little Traveler, Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

The Journey, Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

Fleet Wing and Sweet Voice, Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

The Birthday Present, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

The Little Red Hen, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 

Trottino, Madame Colomb, Through the Farmyard Gate, Poulsson. 

Which Loved the Best, The Golden Ladder, Sneath and Hodges. 

One, Two, Three, The Golden Ladder, Sneath and Hodges. 

Watching for Father, Little Knights and Ladies, Sangster. 

A Little Fairy, Little Knights and Ladies, Sangster. 

The Land of Nod, The Child' *s Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 

The Land of Counterpane, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 

I Know a Little Maiden, When Life is Young, Dodge. 

Seven Little Pussy Cats, When Life is Young, Dodge. 

What Does Little Birdie Say? Tennyson, Child Life, Whittier. 

This literature is suitable to be used not only in close con- 
nection with housekeeping play, as already suggested, but 
also at other times. On many a morning throughout the 
year it is the best material which the teacher can add to the 
devotional exercises in opening the school day. For always 
the children come to school in the morning with experience 
of home life uppermost in their minds, and they listen with 
ready interest to the story or poem which touches such ex- 
perience and illumines it with the glow of sympathetic 
imagination. 

Citizenship in Recreation 

/. Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments 

The work of the modern psychologists has put upon a 
scientific basis the belief — already held by many parents 
and teachers as a result of personal observations — that 
children educate themselves in a great variety of directions 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 41 

and often with surprising success; furthermore that they do 
this through their play. Hence play has come to be valued by 
every thoughtful teacher as a most powerful ally. " Recess 
periods " are no longer regarded as interruptions to the busi- 
ness of the school, necessary only to prevent fatigue. On the 
contrary, they are planned for by the modern teacher as care- 
fully as any other periods in the day. By this forethought 
and by the tact with which she joins in the play, stimulating 
and modifying it, without taking away self -direction from the 
children, she avails herself of the children's natural play 
instincts; and she finds these instincts exceedingly helpful 
in bringing about a finer physical development, stamina, and 
grace ; a greater mental alertness ; more power to make quick 
decisions; higher standards of honesty and justice; in short, 
physical, mental, and moral growth. 

It is necessary here to do no more than call attention to 
the place of play in that education which keeps civic ends dis- 
tinctly in view. There are three outstanding reasons why 
play is especially useful in civic training. It is in games 
and other forms of play that the children feel the keenest 
incentive to individual effort, and there consequently comes 
through these the greatest increase to their power of initia- 
tive. It is in happily managed recreational activities that 
the end attained is so immediate, so pleasurable, and so 
evidently brought about by all pulling together, that there 
is the most natural kindling of the social spirit and most 
willing practice of cooperation. Again, it is in the wisely 
contrived recreational hour that pleasure may be associated 
in the children's minds with the widest variety of objects 
and pursuits, and so there may be awakened the largest num- 
ber of healthy desires and ennobling tastes which would have 
otherwise remained dormant. Now it appears that the power 
of individual initiative and the habit of cooperation in a social 
spirit are the two prime qualities of good citizenship in child 



42 Citizenship In School and Out 

or man. It further appears that the use of a citizen's leisure 
hours for the benefit of himself and his community is best 
promoted, at any age, by his possessing a variety of healthy 
desires and ennobling tastes. 

If, then, recreation which the teacher guides, and in which 
she participates, is so important an aid in the children's 
training, it can hardly be confined to the brief moments of 
the conventional " recess." The spirit of play must be 
brought into certain of the so-called " regular exercises" of 
the school, and at least one or two periods of some length 
must be frankly set apart each week for recreational activities. 
Or this time may be occasionally " saved up" for a week or 
two, and then an entire afternoon may be spent in this form 
of civic training. It can not be too strongly insisted, how- 
ever, that the time may be wasted, or worse, unless the 
conduct of these recreation hours is governed in the teacher's 
mind by the following definite purposes: 

i. To cultivate individual initiative. 

2. To form habits of cooperation. 

3. To increase the range of recreations enjoyed. 

The greatest benefit results when the teacher, her ingenuity 
stimulated by the children's eager suggestions, plans in 
advance such expeditions and entertainments as are worth 
while in themselves, yet are connected in interest with other 
school work. To illustrate: 

a. Walks for bird study, for finding flowers, etc. 

b. An outdoor party with games, and lunch, and guests 

invited by the children. 

c. A Hallowe'en party. 

d. An indoor party with games and really good music, 

for which a victrola may serve. 

Teachers' Aid 

Games for the Playground, Home, School, and Gymnasium, Jessie EL 
Bancroft, The Macmillan Co. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 43 

II. Stories, Poems, Songs, and Pictures 

It has been suggested (on page 42) that the play spirit be 
brought into certain of the so-called " regular exercises" of 
the school. What in children we name the play spirit, in 
grown-ups we call the spirit of art. Its essence is the delight 
which the artist takes in the thing which he is doing and the 
immediate results of his activity. The spirit of work may 
be as full of satisfaction, but it dwells upon the more remote 
ends of the activity and is thereby somewhat sobered. Much 
as we all need the true spirit of work for many serious under- 
takings, it is the play spirit which gives the appropriate 
inspiration for the creation of what are called " works of 
art/' and — what is more important to most of us — for 
their appreciation as well. So it appears that the study in 
school of literature, music, and drawing should not be made 
too sober a task, but that frequently stories, poems, songs, 
and pictures should be selected with the thought of recreation 
uppermost. Furthermore it appears that in presenting these 
selections to the children they should be treated in such ways 
as will: 

1. Give actual pleasure. 

2. Associate pleasure with books, music, and pictures. 

3. Associate pleasure with acting, singing, and reciting. 

4. Help the imagination to reach out in a variety of 
directions. 

The following list indicates some of the material which is 
appropriate for use in this grade with the purposes stated 
above: 

Mother Goose Rhymes. 

Illustrations of Mother Goose Rhymes by Frederick Richardson, also 

by Jessie Wilcox Smith. 
The Three Bears, Story Hour Readers, Book Two, Coe and Christie. 
The Gingerbread Man, Stories to Tell, Bryant. 
The Elves and The Shoemaker, Stories to Tell, Bryant. 



44 Citizenship In School and Out 

Epaminondas, Stories to Tell, Bryant. 

Grandfather's Penny, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 

The Story of Three Little Pigs, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and 

Lewis. 
Mrs. Tabby Gray, Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
The Little Gray Pony, Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Hans and His Dog, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Dumpy the Pony, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Patsy the Calf, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Mrs. Specklety Hen, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Out of the Nest, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
The Visit (Thanksgiving), More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
The Christmas Stocking, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Through the Farmyard Gate (the first sixteen stories), Poulsson. 
Patty's Thanksgiving, In the Child 's World, Poulsson. 
The Chicken World, Pictures drawn by E. Boyd Smith. 
Kitty in the Basket, Follen, Poetry for Children, Eliot. 
Butterflies, Follen, Poetry for Children, Eliot. 
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Taylor, Poetry for Children, Eliot. 
The Cow, The Child y s Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 
The Swing, The Child'' s Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 
At the Seaside, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 
Over in the Meadow, Wadsworth, Child Life, Whittier. 
The New Moon, Follen, Child Life, Whittier. 
The Visit of St. Nicholas, Moore, Child Life, Whittier. 
Spring, Stories and Poems for Children, Thaxter. 
Little Gustava, Stories and Poems for Children, Thaxter. 
Rhythmic Action Plays and Dances such as are found in the collection 

of Irene E. Phillips Moses. 

777. The Celebration of Holidays 

The school celebration of those holidays which have a 
national character should perhaps be treated in the section 
devoted to Organized Community Life. Such celebrations, 
thoughtfully planned, certainly are a means of helping 
children to grow into a consciousness of the national life. 
The suggestions concerning these days are instead placed 
here under the head of Recreation, partly because such school 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 45 

exercises have in the past sometimes been rather dreary 
affairs, consisting mainly of the learning of facts about the 
man or the event celebrated and the recitation of poems 
expressing sentiments which the children certainly did not 
entertain. It is believed that placing emphasis on the rec- 
reational character of these occasions, availing ourselves of 
the children's natural pleasure in an approaching holiday, is 
useful in two ways: it suggests the mood of a fete-day, a 
happy pride in the heroes and events honored, and it may 
serve to give the children special associations with each 
holiday which will make it, throughout life, different from 
every other day in the year, and so a source of peculiar 
pleasure, quite other than that which comes with a plain 
vacation day. The character of the celebrations is deter- 
mined by the following definite aims: 

1. Give the children real pleasure. 

2. Give appropriate associations with each day. 

3. Create admiration for national heroes, the true Christ- 
mas or Thanksgiving spirit, etc. 

4. Impart variety to the children's notions of "a good 
time." 

The days most appropriate to be observed in this grade are 
as follows: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Lincoln's Birthday, 
Valentine's Day, Washington's Birthday, Arbor Day, May 
Day, Decoration Day, Flag Day, and the Eleventh of Nov- 
ember, or whatever day shall in good time be settled upon by 
the Nation as the annual occasion for the fullest expression 
of its deep thankfulness for the victory of Right over Might. 
In some instances of course the school is closed on the day 
itself, and the celebration is held on the preceding day. In 
most cases the celebration is the outcome of work that has 
been carried on for a number of days. To illustrate: 

1. Thanksgiving — The home celebration is made more 
full of meaning to the children if the language lessons for the 



46 Citizenship In School and Out 

preceding week consist of story-telling and conversation on 
such topics as these: 

a. How we celebrate Thanksgiving Day. 

b. What we are doing to help mother get ready. 

c. The story of the first Thanksgiving Day (well told in 

The Story Hour by Wiggin and Smith, Houghton 
Mifflin Co.). 
Lessons in drawing and paper cutting contribute illustra- 
tive work which may be carried home and which will perhaps 
add to the family pleasure at the dinner table. 

2. Christmas — The hand- work done during December is 
enjoyed more than any other, for it consists in making gifts 
for father and mother and perhaps other members of the 
family. The stories told at this time illustrate the spirit of 
generous giving; and there is a "morning talk" by the 
teacher which explains simply that gifts are to show love, 
and that Christmas, the Birthday of Jesus, who taught us 
the joy of unselfish loving and giving, is the festival of love 
and gifts. Two books will aid the teacher here: In the 
Child's World by Poulsson and For the Children's Hour by 
Bailey and Lewis, both published by the Milton Bradley Co. 

3. Lincoln's Birthday — Stories suitable to be told before 
the day are: 

a. The little boy Abraham Lincoln giving his fish to a 

soldier. 

b. President Lincoln's kindness to soldiers. 

c. The protection of a turtle. 

d. The rescue of a dog. 

Features of a celebration suitable for February 12th or the 
preceding day are: 

a. A picture of Lincoln in a prominent place before the 
class for the day, draped with the national colors or framed 
with laurel or other green. Our flag displayed near. 

£. Explanation by the teacher of why we keep the Birth- 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 47 

day of Lincoln, our best loved president, — loved because 
he was kind, because he was strong. Examples of his kind- 
ness given (told or acted) by the children from stories pre- 
viously taught. 

c. Patriotic songs, such as: Salute to the Flag, and Hail 
Fairest Land. 

In preparing the stories from any biography of Lincoln 
the teacher needs to read much between the lines and make 
many adaptations to the children's understanding and appre- 
ciation. She is much helped in this by letting the children 
ask questions and talk the story over as it proceeds. Ma- 
terial is furnished or suggested in the following books: 

Life of Lincoln, Coffin, Harper and Brothers. 

Lincoln the Man of the People, Mace, Rand McNally & Co. 

The Kendall Third Reader, Kendall and Stevens, D. C. Heath & Co. 

4. Washington's Birthday — Two stories which deal with 
the boy, George Washington, and his mother are of special 
interest to children of this grade. 

a. The death of the colt. 

b. The giving up of the desire to be a sailor. 

These stories are told in detail by the teacher and carefully 
talked over with the children, then dramatized by them. 
Books useful to the teacher are: 

An Elementary History of the United States, Thomas, D. C. Heath & Co. 
First Book in American History, Eggleston, American Book Co. 
Four Great Americans, Baldwin, American Book Co. 
George Washington: An Historical Biography, Scudder, Houghton 

Mifflin Co. 
American Leaders and Heroes, Gordy, Charles Scribner's Sons. 

5. Decoration Day — The children are not old enough 
to be given historical facts, nor will they benefit by listening 
to stories of fighting and suffering. They can, however, be 
led to look upon the flag with a feeling of pleasure and respect, 



48 Citizenship In School and Out 

and to understand, even though vaguely, that it somehow 
stands for our country, that soldiers protect it, and so must 
we. The attempt to cultivate this sentiment may take the 
following form: 

a. Teacher's explanation: the day on which we honor 

the soldiers, because they were brave and loved 
our flag. 

b. Appropriate exercises: Marching, flag drill, flag salute, 

bringing flower tributes. Singing patriotic songs. 
6. Flag Day, June 14th — The aim here is similar to that 
of the Decoration Day celebration. The observance may be 
as follows: 

a. The meaning of the design of the flag explained. 

b. Appropriate exercises: Flag salute, flag drill, singing 

about the flag. 

Citizenship in Work 

/. Working Together 

Even in this first year, when school life is yet very far — 
the farther the better — from being a series of set tasks, there 
are already efforts at learning which may be made by the 
children in the true spirit of work, a spirit which leads them 
to look forward with steadiness to the end for which the 
effort is made, and, though they may be happy in the doing, 
to get their chief satisfaction in the fact of attainment. 
Every teacher tries to cultivate this attitude toward the task 
of learning lessons. Many teachers feel, not without good 
reason, that to do this is one of the most important contribu- 
tions the school can make to character development. The 
highest degree of success in cultivating this attitude is doubt- 
less met by the teacher who, other things being equal, best 
helps the children to perceive the end for which each effort 
is made as something very real and concrete, an unquestioned 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 49 

"good" from their childish point of view, and not too remote. 
The consequent growth in diligence and perseverance is, 
however, only half the story of growth in good citizenship 
in the field of work. All the relations of the individual 
worker to other workers and of his labor to the labors of 
others, — relations which, in the texture of modern industrial 
life, are to the strictly individual characteristics of the work- 
man as the warp is to the woof, — all these are yet to be con- 
sidered. And even in the first year of school life we may 
consider these civic relations of work, and may make a point 
of the children's working together in such fashion as to get the 
beginning of social consciousness and some notion of co- 
operation and interdependence. 

There are certain activities which, because of their social 
character, serve these purposes better than study and recita- 
tion do. To illustrate: 

1. Distributing and collecting material used by the class. 

2. Caring for "the children's corner' ' in the room. 

3. Cleaning erasers, watering plants, keeping room neat. 

4. Keeping in order coats, over-shoes, etc. 

5. Opening and closing doors, ringing bell for recess, etc. 

6. Helping in the care of a pet. 

This work is of the greatest educational value when it is 
done, not mechanically in obedience to the teacher's direc- 
tions, but whole-heartedly and with a sense of responsibility, 
because each child who does any bit of work is brought to 
realize in what way it is of benefit to the whole group. In 
these repeated activities and in the actual perception of the 
resulting benefits to the group, certain specific habits and 
ideals which are greatly needed in civic life are beginning to 
be formed; for example, orderliness and thrift, In this 
connection there may sometimes be a use for such stories as 
the following: The Ant and the Cricket by iEsop, The Open 
Gate and Dust Under the Rug by Lindsay in Mother Stories. 



50 Citizenship In School and Out 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 
I. Practice in Social Virtues and Graces 

Teachers have sometimes been known to remark with sur- 
prise that certain pupils whose behavior within the school 
domain is a model of propriety, when met outside the school 
grounds, show no more social training than so many little 
barbarians. And frequently, in less extreme cases, it appears 
that this child or that has failed to see any close connection 
between social behavior in school hours and social behavior 
at any other time of day. This fact points to the conclusion 
that it is desirable to give as many opportunities as possible in 
the school life for the exercise of those virtues and graces which 
are distinctively social in character, — courtesy, helpfulness, 
unselfishness, self-restraint, and the like; and furthermore that 
the most useful opportunities are those where the artificial con- 
ditions of the conventional school-room prevail least, and many 
features of the children's own social environment outside school 
are recognized, perhaps even reproduced. To illustrate: 

i. A period during school hours when the children engage 
in activities of their own choice. Ring-toss, bean-bag, simple 
construction work, paper-cutting, and looking at pictures, 
for instance, are suggested to the children. They then select 
their activity, divide into groups, and within each group 
choose for themselves whatever leaders, score-keepers, or the 
like, are needed. 

2. Other occasions available for this purpose: 

a. Playground periods. 

b. Industrial periods. 

c. Outdoor expeditions. 

d. Outdoor or indoor entertainments or parties. 

77. Stories Illustrating Social Virtues and Graces 

Though it is an axiom that good manners were never 
learned from books, still it is probably true that entertaining 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 51 

stories which make very attractive such traits as unselfish- 
ness, helpfulness, courtesy, and self-restraint are not without 
their effect upon impressionable children if wisely used. 
These stories are usually best left to exert their own influence 
on the children's feelings and standards of action, without 
the aid of a formulated " moral lesson"; but are likely to be 
most effective if told in connection with the social occasions 
specified on the preceding pages, sometimes before the event, 
sometimes after it, according to the nature of the case. A 
few stories which may be found useful are the following: 

Diamonds and Toads, Child Life, Vol. Ill, MacDonald and Blaisdell. 

Cinderella, The Book of Fables and Folk Stories, Scudder. 

The Pig Brother, The Golden Windows, Richards. 

Goops and How to Be Them, Burgess. 

The Littie Shepherd, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

The Broken Window Pane, More Mother Stories, Lindsay. 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 
/. Sharing Consciously the Community Life of the School 

With the child's entrance into school he is coming into his 
first experience of active membership in an organized com- 
munity, and the teacher's chief care necessarily is that he 
shall realize that there is here a common life in which all the 
children and the teacher share, and that his relationship to 
this life may be a helpful and happy one. This realization 
is best reached through taking part in many activities which 
are evidently useful to the whole class or the whole school, 
and for this reason foster the beginnings of loyalty and public 
spirit. 

To illustrate: 

1. Making decorations for the Christmas trees of the 

children in other rooms of the school. 

2. Bringing nuts, suet, etc., for the use of all the children 

in feeding birds. 



52 Citizenship In School and Out 

3. Sharing class property (plants, books, music, etc.), with 

the children of another class. 

4. Bringing from" home, for the class to hear, some story, 

victrola record, or the like. 

5. Planning and giving by one group a special " morning 

exercise" treat for the rest of the school. 
Actual experiences like the above help the child citizens 
of the school community to form ideals such as no literature, 
however suggestive, could by itself create in them. Used in 
a supplementary way, however, appropriate stories are often 
useful. For example, ^Esop's fable of the Lion and the Mouse 
and the folk-tale of The Old Woman and her Pig, found in 
Bailey and Lewis's collection, For the Children's Hour. 

II. Dramatization of Getting and Giving Help on a City Street l 

It is on the street that young children come into most 
frequent contact with the organized life of the city. It 
is here that they make acquaintance with the policeman, 
watch the street-cleaner at work, or follow the sprinkling 
cart at a distance just close enough to be exciting. On their 
way to school they may notice a fire-alarm box, and wonder 
in passing why it is painted a different color from the post 
boxes; or they may be startled by the clang and clatter of a 
fire-engine on its way to a burning building. 

Their attention is attracted by these signs of a corporate 
life, but they cannot read them. They do not know that they 
are observing some of the means by which the city protects 
the lives and property of its citizens and procures for them 
conveniences and opportunities. Nor can they be taught 
this by formal lessons, no matter how simple the wording or 
how entertaining the method employed. 

The city is too complex an organization for young children 

1 For city or suburban schools, only. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the First Grade 53 

to study profitably, as a unit, either by listening to explana- 
tions of its make-up, or by going through motions which the 
teacher tells them are in imitation of its government. The 
school can, however, helpfully interpret to themes/ one and 
then another manifestation of the city's care for its people. 

Here again, as in the case of home life, dramatization is 
an excellent way of emphasizing important facts and bring- 
ing about right attitudes of mind. Incidents which have 
fallen under the children's observation, or better still have 
befallen themselves, as they have passed through the city 
streets, are good material with which to begin the interpre- 
tation of the life of the city. This interpretation may well 
be continued in some fashion in each year of the school course 
of every city child. 

In the first grade the scenes dramatized must be very 
simple and very close to the experience of all the members of 
the class. To illustrate: 

1. If there is a day when the streets are covered with ice, 
the children may play a street scene which shall show a 
policeman helping a number of persons to cross the street 
in safety. The children will play with equal zest the part 
of the strong, attentive policeman and the roles of the various 
pedestrians who need his help, — the lame soldier, the boy 
with a heavy bundle, the feeble old lady, the little child, and 
all the others who are saved from slipping and falling on the 
icy pavement. 

2. If the children have recently seen a street parade, 
they will like to reproduce it. In this scene the paraders 
have prominent parts, but scarcely less prominent are the 
policemen who keep the street clear for the procession to 
pass through, prevent the automobiles from blocking each 
other's way, guard people in the crowd from being too 
roughly jostled, and rescue small boys from being run over. 

3. If there has been a fire in the vicinity, the children 



54 Citizenship In School and Out 

may show how the fire was discovered, and how the alarm was 
turned in; how the firemen hastened to reach the spot, and 
how they put the fire out; finally, how sorry someone is 
that he was careless about this, that, or the other thing that 
may have caused the fire. 

In this dramatization of street scenes the teacher's part 
is much the same as it is in the housekeeping play. There 
is need for her to help the children by questions and sug- 
gestions to weave together from their experiences, the story 
which they act; but there is no need for her to point in words 
"the moral of the play." Children who really have a share 
in arranging such scenes, and who act their parts under- 
standingly, will not fail to receive the impression that the 
policeman and the fireman are useful guardians of the street 
and of the homes that line it; but that their guardianship 
must be helped out by the carefulness and responsibility of 
the individual residents and passers by, big and little. 



CHAPTER V 

Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade 

Citizenship in the Home 

/. A Study of the Children's Own Homes 

The children's study of their own home lives may become 
a little more systematic in this grade than was the house- 
keeping play of the year before. The teacher may plan the 
lessons to conform to some such outline as the following: 

Activities of the Home Life 
i. Eating: 

a. Kinds of food. 

6. Where certain kinds come from. 

c. By whom the food is brought to the home. 

d. By whom prepared at home. 

e. How put upon the table, how eaten, etc. 
/. How and why not wasted. 

2. Sleeping: 

a. When we go to bed. 

b. The kinds of beds we sleep in. 

c. Any songs or stories to put the younger ones to 

sleep ? 

d. The first sounds we hear on waking in the morning. 

3. Working: 

a. The kinds of work Father does. 

b. The kinds of work Mother does. 

c. The ways in which the children help. 

d. Why the work must be done. 

55 



56 Citizenship In School and Out 

4. Playing: 

a. Out of doors: Games, sports of the different seasons, 

riding, walking, gathering flowers or fruit, etc. 
6. Indoors: Games, romping, music, pictures, stories, 
dolls, whittling, etc. 
This outline is used by the teacher to aid her own plan- 
ning; it is not used at all by the children. In class the study 
is conducted by a series of informal conversations in which 
the children take a lively part. Frequently the lessons are 
varied by throwing them into a very simple dramatic form. 
Groups of children, in turn, imitate the familiar activities 
of home life, while the others look on, and, encouraged by 
the teacher, make constructive suggestions as to the play. 
Certain points in the study are illustrated by appropriate 
stories, poems, and pictures, such as the following: 

Sweet and Low, Tennyson, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 

The Lost Doll, Kingsley, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 

Feeding her Birds (picture), Millet. 

My Bed is a Boat, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 

The Land of Story Books, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 

The Fairy who Came to our House, For the Children's Hour, Bailey 

and Lewis. 
The Sheep and the Pig, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 
The Big Red Apple, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 
Do What You Can, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 
The Johnny Cake, In the Child's World, Poulsson. 
Sleep Baby Sleep, Cradle Song, Child Life, Whittier. 
The Little Nurse (picture), von Bremen. 

II. A Study of Eskimo Home Life 

The activities of a home life very different from the child- 
ren's own are studied concretely in the story of an Eskimo 
child. The Story of Agoonack, in the Seven Little Sisters 
by Jane Andrews, is an excellent guide to the study. This 
study is best taken in mid-winter, when it may be possible 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade 57 

at times for the children to imitate in their out-of-door play 
some of the Eskimo child's work or sports. Comparisons 
are made at every turn of the story with the children's own 
home life, as outlined under / above, and this comparison 
of their familiar interests and surroundings with similar or 
contrasting things in a more primitive and picturesque mode 
of life, not only lays a foundation for the study of history and 
geography in later years, but also makes the children more 
alive in the present moment to many significant facts of their 
own social environment. 

Teachers' Aids 

Seven Little Sisters, Andrews, Ginn & Co. 

Each and All, x\ndrews, Ginn & Co. 

Children of the Cold, Schwatka, Cassell Publishing Co. 

The Snow Baby, Peary, Stokes & Co. 

Eskimo Stories, Smith, Rand McNally Co. 

Eskimo Land, Hawkes, Ginn & Co. 

Little Folks of Many Lands, Chance, Ginn & Co. 

Citizenship in Recreation 

I. Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments 

Here again, as in the first year of training in citizenship, 
the teacher who desires to utilize in this training as far as 
possible the children's play instincts, not only devotes much 
attention to recess periods, but also plans occasional expe- 
ditions and entertainments with the conscious purposes: 

1. To cultivate individual initiative. 

2. To form habits of cooperation. 

3. To increase the range of recreations enjoyed. 
Enterprises which appear to the children to be exclusively 

for their delight may be undertaken and carried through by 
the teacher with careful adherence to these purposes. 



58 Citizenship In School and Out 

To illustrate: 

a. A Hallowe'en party. 

b. Story-telling and dramatizing out of doors. 

c. A musical, comprising songs, singing games, folk- 

dancing, victrola or piano selections, and the dram- 
atization of a song. 

Teachers' Aid 
See Chapter IV, p. 42. 

II. Stories, Poems, Songs, and Pictures 

In the second grade, as in the first, it is worth while to 
make sure that the children, as well as we ourselves, are 
connecting the thought of literature and art with that of 
recreation. Hence stories are put into the freest sort of 
action; the dramatic and the rhythmic elements of poetry 
are made prominent, so that the children of their own desire 
repeat lines, and often with spontaneous gestures; pictures 
are examined with eager interest to find the story they may 
tell; and songs are sung merely for the joy of singing. In 
brief the purposes mentioned before are held in mind. 

1. Give actual pleasure. 

2. Associate pleasure with books, music, and pictures. 

3. Associate pleasure with acting, singing, and reciting. 

4. Help the imagination to reach out in a variety of 

directions. 
The following list may be suggestive as to material suitable 
for these purposes. Other suggestions may be found under 
other heads, since in the field of recreation it is the method 
of treatment which is of prime importance, and much subject 
matter useful for education in other fields is also available 
here. 

Dick Whittington and His Cat, The Book of Fables and Folk Stories, 

Scudder. 
The White Cat, The Book of Fables and Folk Stories, Scudder. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade 59 

The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, The Book of Fables and Folk Stories, 

Scudder. 
Odysseus and the Bag of Winds, In the Child's World, Poulsson. 
Daffydowndilly, Warner, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 
The Legend of the Dandelion, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and 

Lewis. 
Nell and Her Bird, Dodge, Poetry for Children, Eliot. 
Mabel on Midsummer Day, Howitt, In the Child's World, Poulsson. 
Little White Lily, MacDonald, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 
The Hayloft, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 
The Wind, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 
How the Leaves Came Down, Coolidge, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and 

Smith. 
Snowflakes, When Life is Young, Dodge. 
Thanksgiving Day, Child, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 
Mrs. Santa Claus, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 
The Story of Gretchen (Christmas), Mother Stories, Lindsay. 
Mother Hubbard and Her Wonderful Dog, Heart of Oak Books, 

Vol. I. 
The House that Jack Built, Heart of Oak Books, Vol. I. 
The History of Tom Thumb, Heart of Oak Books Vol. I, Norton. 
The Tongue Cut Sparrow, Ozaki, The Children's Hour, Vol. I, Tappan. 
Playing Store, Stepping Stones to Literature, Second Reader, Arnold 

and Gilbert. 
Jack and Joe, Stepping Stones to Literature, Second Reader, Arnold 

and Gilbert. 
Rhythmic Action Plays and Dances such as are found in the collec- 
tion of Irene E. Phillips Moses. 

In the list above there is one kind of literature which has 
inevitably been drawn upon. Fairy stories and folk lore 
appeal especially to children's taste, and must be included 
in any collection made primarily for their entertainment. 
The selection of stories of this class from the over abundant 
material published is, however, a matter for careful con- 
sideration. The effort has been made here to avoid all those 
which exhibit the lower ethical ideals which prevailed in the 
childhood of the race; e.g., the exalting of a hero because of 
his successful deceit or his exercise of power to the point of 



6o Citizenship In School and Out 

cruelty, No matter how charming the literary form of such 
stories may be, or how much light they may throw on the 
history of the race (witness certain stories from Homer or 
almost any of Grimm's fairy tales), acquaintance with them 
may well be deferred until the children are old enough to have 
developed ethical notions of their own more in accord with 
the higher standards held in the present age, at least through- 
out the larger part of the civilized world. 

777. The Celebration of Holidays 

The same holidays are celebrated in this grade as in the 
first grade (see page 45) and for the same reasons; viz.: 

1. Give the children real pleasure. 

2. Give appropriate associations with each day. 

3. Create admiration for national heroes, the true Christ- 

mas or Thanksgiving spirit, etc. 

4. Impart variety to the children's notions of "a good 

time." 
To illustrate: 

1. Lincoln 1 s Birthday — Stories which may be told and 
talked over with the children before the day are: 

a. The return of the young birds to the nest. 

b. How Lincoln helped a strange little girl. 

c. Tad's playfellow. 

d. Stories told in Grade I recalled. 

On the day itself, or if school is not then in session, on the 
day before, the children may make their own choice from 
among the stories they have heard, and may act out those 
which they think best show Lincoln's kind heart and helping 
hand. 

2. Washington's Birthday — - The story of the making of the 
flag for Washington by Betsy Ross may be told by the teacher 
and illustrated by pictures. Then the story may be acted 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade 61 

by the children or shown by them in tableaux arranged as 
they suggest from their study of pictures. 

3. Flag Day, June 14th — On preceding days the symbol- 
ism of the flag is explained. On the day itself there take place 
exercises of the following character: A drill which gives 
prominence to the separate colors of the flag; songs about 
the flag; the flag salute. 

Teachers' Aids 
For Lincoln's Day: 

Makers of the Nation, Coe, American Book Co. 

Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls, Moores, Ginn & Co. 

See also Chapter IV, p. 47, for other books. 

For Washington's Day and Flag Day: 

The Story of the American Flag, Wayne Whipple, Henry Altemus Co. 

See also Chapter IV, p. 47, for other books. 

Citizenship in Work 
/. Working Together 

In this grade the effort is continued to lay stress not only 
upon the desirable characteristics of the individual worker, 
but also upon his social relations. This stress is of course 
not laid by means of words, since in this field, as in others, 
moralizing is believed to be the least effective of methods, but 
the effort is made to place the children in situations where 
they will work together in such fashion as to increase social 
consciousness and call attention to instances of interdepend- 
ence and cooperation. 

To illustrate: 

1. Making and caring for a window garden. 

2. Leaving the school-room in good order at night, each 

child having a part in the work. 

3. " Playing Store." 

The last mentioned " project" is an excellent means of 
teaching not only carefulness, courtesy, and economy in buy- 
ing and selling, but also many lessons in arithmetic and 



62 Citizenship In School and Out 

language, including spelling; and when the play is connected 
with actual conditions outside the school-room, the social 
value of the lessons is increased. This connection may be 
made by sending some children on real errands to real stores 
and by letting others report informally on errands which they 
have done for someone at home. • These experiences help in 
starting the play right and give a chance to apply the lessons 
learned in the course of the play. 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 
/. Practice in Social Virtues and Graces 

In this grade the effort is continued to give as many 
opportunities as possible for the exercise of those virtues and 
graces which are distinctively social in character, — courtesy, 
helpfulness, unselfishness, self-restraint, and the like; and to 
make these opportunities such that the artificial conditions of the 
conventional school-room prevail as little as possible, and many 
features of the children's own social environment outside school 
are recognized, perhaps even reproduced. 

To illustrate: 

i. Garden work is especially rich in such opportunities. 
The use of tools must often be shared, the girls need the help 
of the boys in the heavier work; one child's crop of radishes 
or lettuce fails, through no fault of his own, and another child 
finds a way to temper his friend's disappointment; flowers 
are sent to a near-by hospital or to a sick acquaintance; 
there is never an end to the list of chances to cultivate a truly 
social spirit. 

2. Other occasions available for this purpose: 
#. Playground periods. 

b. Industrial periods. 

c. Outdoor expeditions. 

d. Outdoor or indoor entertainments or parties. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade 63 

II. Stories Illustrating Social Virtues and Graces 

If it be borne in mind that stories designed to make any 
virtues attractive will be effective only if they enlist the 
children's sympathies, and that they are then best left to exert 
their own influence on the children's feelings and standards of 
action, without the aid of a formulated u moral lesson" — if 
this be borne in mind and govern both the selection and 
method of telling or reading such literature to the children, 
the teacher may find useful, in connection with the sort of 
social occasions suggested on the preceding pages, stories 
such as are given in the following list: 

The Wind and the Sun, iEsop. 

St. George and the Dragon, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
The Talkative Tortoise, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
Why Violets Have Golden Hearts, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges 
The Half Chick, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
The Magic Mask, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
Sara Crewe, Burnett, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
Nixie Bunny in Manners Land, Sindelar. 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 

/. Sharing Consciously the Community Life of 

the School 

Loyalty, public spirit, and obedience to law are civic 
virtues which the every-day life of the ordinary school-room 
gives ample opportunity to cultivate, since here is commun- 
ity life in which each child has a citizen's share. The main 
difficulty is to cultivate these qualities without sacrificing 
another characteristic equally essential to good citizenship, — 
the power to think and act independently. Activities which 
make especially plain the reasonableness of public-spirited 
conduct and emphasize the beneficial nature of its results are, 
of course, the most desirable ones to encourage for this pur- 
pose. 



64 Citizenship In School and Out 

To illustrate: 

1. Gathering flowers and arranging them for the pleasure 
of all in the room. 

2. Taking the part of the teacher in conducting one's own 
class when the lesson in spelling or reading is a review. 

3. Participation in leaving the room in order at night, 
distributing material for work, choosing good work to be 
exhibited, etc. 



77. "Playing Postman 



i) 



In this grade the children are learning to write little letters 
of their own composing and if there is a "play post-box ;? 
provided for them in the school-room, they may become very 
much interested in the exchange of letters among themselves 
and with the teacher and their home friends. Especially on 
or near Valentine's Day, they find "The Postman is Coming!" 
a fascinating play. 

The interest thus developed, combined with their obser- 
vations of the postman on the street and at their own doors 
(or stopping at the Rural Free Delivery box near by), makes 
a good starting point for several conversational lessons. 
These may follow some such course as is indicated by this 
outline: 

Our Postman 
(or Rural Letter Carrier) 

i . What he does for our family. 

2. The many families he does the same for. 

3. The miles he must walk (or ride) in all sorts of weather. 

4. The care he must take of his mail. 

5. Why we must quickly answer his whistle (or must be 

waiting at the R.F.D. box to give him our parcel). 

6. The meaning of the uniform he wears. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Second Grade 65 

7. The many other postmen in the city, in other cities, and 

everywhere throughout the country, all wearing the 

same uniform, all at w r ork in the same way for us and 

our friends. 

The close interweaving of this play with lessons in language, 

reading, spelling, and writing is obvious. Number work and 

drawing are almost as easy to connect with it, and even 

singing can be related to it. See The Postman in Songs of 

the Child World, No. 2, Riley and Gaynor, published by The 

John Church Company. 



CHAPTER VI 

Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 

Citizenship in the Home 

7. A Study of the Children's Own Homes 

In the study of home activities followed in the preceding 
grades the essential family relationships have of course been 
touched upon again and again. Now, however, it seems 
profitable for them to become the center of interest for a 
Series of conversational lessons, helped by literature and 
pictures, and constituting, as well, useful " language lessons." 
The conversations with the class are of course entirely in- 
formal, but the teacher may aim to cover the ground sug- 
gested by the following outline. 

Relationships of the Home Life 

i. The Father: 

a. Provides — what ? 

b. Protects — how ? 

c. - Helps the children to enjoy — what and how ? 

2. The Mother: 

a. Makes the home — how? 

b. Cares for all — how? 

c. Helps the children to enjoy — what and how? 

3. The Children: 

a. Need what from others ? 

b. Give what to others? 

The following stories, poems, and pictures may be found 
useful in the development of the subject: 

66 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 67 

The Children's Hour, Longfellow. 

The Wilderness Babies, Schwartz. 

Hans and the Wonderful Flower, For the Children' 's Hour, Bailey and 
Lewis. 

The Mince Pie, Richards, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 

The Lullaby of an Infant Chief, Scott, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and 
Smith. 

In Which Hand? (picture), Meyer von Bremen. 

See Wliat Mother Has Brought Home (picture), Meyer von Bremen. 

The Pet Bird (picture), Meyer von Bremen. 

A Helping Hand (picture), Renouf. 

II. A Study of Indian Home Life 

The activities and relationships of the home life are also 
studied concretely in the story of an Indian child. Com- 
parisons are made at every turn of the story with the chil- 
dren's own home life as outlined for this grade and the preced- 
ing one. Just as in the Study of the Eskimo life, so here, 
these frequent comparisons of familiar interests and sur- 
roundings with whatever is fundamentally like, or strikingly 
different, in a mode of life more primitive and picturesque, 
not only lay a foundation for the study of history and geog- 
raphy in later years, but also make the children more alive in 
the present moment to many facts of their own experience which 
ore full of social significance. 

In developing this story of the Indian child, attention 
is paid to giving the children an active share in the work. 
They are encouraged to ask and answer questions and retell 
parts of the sto y, to act out other parts, and (after they 
have acquired ideas definite enough to represent) to make 
things that appear in the story, either on the sand table or 
by the use of clay, paper, plasticene, cloth, etc. Pictures 
also are an aid in this study, and are chosen carefully to 
represent objects and situations of which the children have 
already formed some conceptions. They are useful only 



68 Citizenship In School and Out 

when each child is allowed to look long enough the first time 
and look again on other days often enough to satisfy his 
curiosity and interest. Bits of poetry, like the lullaby sung 
by Nokomis (from Hiawatha), add to the pleasure of the 
study, if they are talked over by all, read aloud sympatheti- 
cally by the teacher, and then committed to memory by the 
children. 

Teachers' Aids 

The Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow, Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Docas, The Indian Boy, Snedden, D. C. Heath & Co. 
Indian Child Life, Eastman, Little, Brown & Co. 
Indians and Pioneers, Hazard and Dutton, The Morse Co. 
Children of the Wigwam, Chase, Educational Publishing Co. 
Stories of the Red Children, Brooks, Educational Publishing Co. 
The Indian Primer, Fox, American Book Co. 
American Indians, Starr, D. C. Heath & Co. 

III. A Study of the Neighborhood l 

A study of the relation of each home to its neighborhood 
is now in order. This study is conducted by conversations 
based on the children's own observations and experiences. 
Some neighborly act which the children have just known 
about is the natural starting point. Concrete instances are 
more useful than general statements. The statement, "We 
do thus and so" is better than the statement, "We ought to 
do thus and so." The following outline may be suggestive: 
I. What we do for our neighbors: 

a. Share good things; e.g., something nice which 

mother has cooked, something from the garden. 

&. Help in little ways; e.g., run on an errand, let them 

use our telephone. 
C. Protect their property; e.g., if w r e saw a neighbor's 
dog straying away, if we saw hens scratching up 
his flower seeds, etc. 

1 For rural schools, especially. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 69 

d. Protect them from harm; e.g., if we saw a little 
child playing in the street or other dangerous 
place. 
2. What our neighbors do for us: 
As under 1 above. 



Citizenship in Recreation 

/. Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments 

The reasons for taking time from the u regular school work" 
for recreational activities are the same here as in the earlier 
grades; viz.: 

1. To cultivate individual initiative. 

2. To form habits of cooperation. 

3. To increase the range of recreations enjoyed. 

The opportunities for civic training by this means become 
greater, however, as the children grow older. This is espe- 
cially true, perhaps, of the opportunity to train in habits of 
cooperation. The children are old enough now^ to take a 
large share in making plans for the recreation hour. They 
may even do considerable work in preparing for it. Finally 
they may be led to appreciate how each one's share in the 
planning and the w r ork has fitted into the whole scheme and 
contributed to the success of the final event. 

The entertainments may now be somew T hat more elaborate, 
since the time spent in preparation is no less beneficial than 
the occasion itself. 

To illustrate: 

a. Exchanging visits with another grade, the visiting grade 
being entertained by a program made up from such material 
as is suggested under // below, or being shown an exhibit of 
hand-work; for instance, such articles as the children have 
made and collected during their study of Indian life. 



70 Citizenship In School and Out 

b. Making a bonfire of rubbish which has been collected 
in the process of clearing up the garden plot in the late falj. 

c. Taking a picnic supper out of doors some afternoon in 
June; 

Teachers' Aid 
See Chapter IV, p. 42. 

II. Stories, Poems, Songs, and Pictures 

In this grade, in much of the study of literature, pictures, 
and music, the same purposes hold good that have been 
mentioned before under the head of Recreation; viz.: 

i. Give actual pleasure. 

2. Associate pleasure with books, music, and pictures. 

3. Associate pleasure with acting, singing, and reciting. 

4. Help the imagination to reach out in a variety of ways. 
Material which lends itself to these purposes is to be found 

in the following list: 

The Golden-rod and Aster, For the Children's Hour, Bailey and Lewis. 

The Fairies of Caldon Low, Howitt, Poetry for Children, Eliot. 

October's Party, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 

The Fairies' Shopping, Deland, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 

Racketty Packetty House, Burnett. 

A Trip to Toyland, Eugene Field, The Art-Literature Readers, Book III, 

Chutter. 
My Shadow, The Child's Garden of Verses, Stevenson. 
The Birds' Christmas, In the Child's World, Poulsson. 
Old Christmas (Selected stanzas) , Poetry for Children, Eliot. 
Guessing Song, Johnston, The Posy Ring. 
The Hare and the Tortoise, iEsop. 
Philip's Valentines, In the Child's World, Poulsson. 
Play Days, Jewett. 

The Story of Mouflou, Perry, The Story Hour, Wiggin and Smith. 
The Oriole's Nest, Wiggin, The Story Hour, Wiggin and Smith. 
Nature Myths, Cooke. 
Red Riding-Hood, Whittier. 

The Yellow-Bird, Riley, The Art-Literature Readers, Book IV, Chutter. 
Playtime and Seedtime, Parker and Helm. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 71 

Robert of Lincoln, Bryant. 

Chorus of the Flowers, Wheelock, Nature in Verse. 
Seven Times One, Ingelow, Child Life, Whittier. 
Hiawatha's Brothers, The Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow. 
Stories told by Nokomis, The Song of Hiawatha, Longfellow. 
A Picture of Hiawatha, Norris. 
A Mother's Care (picture), Leigh Hunt. 

Rhythmic Action Plays and Dances such as are found in the collection 
of Irene E. Phillips Moses. 

III. The Celebration of Holidays 

The same holidays are celebrated in this grade as in the 
first and second grades (see page 45) and for the same reasons: 

1. Give the children real pleasure. 

2. Give appropriate associations with each day. 

3. Create admiration for national heroes, the true Christ- 

mas or Thanksgiving spirit, etc. 

4. Impart variety to the children's notions of a "good 

time." 
To illustrate: 

1. Thanksgiving — For several days before Thanksgiving 
Day the " morning talks " and the story-telling direct the 
thoughts of the children to the reason for its observance, and 
help them to see the significance of the home celebration. 
The following topics may be suggestive: 

a. How the Pilgrim children helped their mothers get 

ready for this day. 

b. Some of the things that the Pilgrims were thankful for. 

c. Some of the things that we are thankful for. 

2. Christmas — Preparing a Christmas Tree for the birds 
is an excellent* form for this celebration to take. This tree 
is a delightful feature of a Christmas party in the woods on 
the closing day of the term, or if circumstances do not permit 
this, set up in a corner of the school yard, it gives pleasure for 
several days preceding the holiday. Its preparation is a 



7 2 Citizenship In School and Out 

cooperative enterprise which gives none the less opportunity 
for valuable training because there is so much of joy in it. 

3. Flag Day, June 14th — The story of the making of our 
flag may be told before the day arrives and facts recalled 
which the children have before learned as to its design and 
its symbolism. A few stories of the recent war may be added 
to show how it has been held in honor by our soldiers and by 
even the little children of the nations to which it has brought 
help. On the day itself a flag raising is an appropriate cere- 
mony. If the children earn the money to buy the flag, by 
running errands, etc., and the new flag is displayed for the 
first time in some spot which they regard as especially their 
own, it need not be a very large or expensive flag to evoke 
real enthusiasm. 

Teachers' Aids 

For Thanksgiving Day: 

The Pilgrims in their Three Homes, Grifhs, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Mary of Plymouth, Otis, American Book Co. 

Pilgrim Stories, Pumphrey, Rand, McNally Co. 

Stories of Colonial Children, Pratt, Educational Publishing Co. 

The Kendall Third Reader, Kendall and Stevens, D. C. Heath & Co. 
For Christmas Day: 

In the Child's World, Poulsson, Milton Bradley Co. 

Poetry for Children, Eliot, Houghton Mifflin Co. 
For Flag Day: 

The Story of the American Flag, Wayne Whipple, Henry Altemus Co. 

Feeding French Children, National School Service, Nov. 15, 1918, 
Committee on Public Information. 

Citizenship in Work 

I. Working Together 

As the children grow older, it grows easier and even more 
profitable than in the first two years to plan undertakings 
which shall be carried out by all the pupils in one school-room 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 73 

working together for one object. It is often necessary, of 
course, to have " division of labor," but each one contributes 
his share and sees how the result, beneficial to all, is brought 
about. He gains thereby in the vividness with which he 
realizes his membership in a group and appreciates the fact of 
interdependence and the necessity for cooperation and personal 
responsibility. Projects suitable for these purposes at this 
age are often very rich in material for lessons in arithmetic, 
drawing, language, etc., as well as valuable for their social 
suggestion and training. 
To illustrate: 

1. Furnishing a doll house; planning the furnishings, 

making them, and arranging them in the house. 

2. Setting a hen, caring for her and for the chickens when 

they are hatched. 

3. Junior Red Cross Work. 

Teachers 1 Aid 

Junior Red Cross Activities, Teachers' Manual, Published by the 
American Red Cross. 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 

/. Practice of the Social Virtues and Graces 

In this year the same effort as for the two preceding years 
is made to give as many opportunities as possible in the school 
life for the exercise of those virtues and graces which are dis- 
tinctively social in character, — courtesy, helpfulness, unselfish- 
ness, self-restraint, and the like, and to make these opportunities 
such that the artificial conditions of the conventional school-room 
prevail as Utile as possible, and many features of the children's 
own social environment outside school are recognized, perhaps 
even reproduced. 



74 Citizenship In School and Out 

To illustrate: 

i. Being allowed to choose, when work is done, each his 
favorite form of recreation from those practicable in 
the " play-corner" of the school- room, and there 
enjoying all the freedom which is compatible with 
others having the same privilege. 

2. Other occasions available for this purpose: 

a. Playground periods. 

b. Industrial periods. 

c. The luncheon hour. 

d. Outdoor expeditions. 

e. Outdoor or indoor entertainments or parties. 

It may be well here to call attention to the fact that 
among occasions which have been mentioned in the preceding 
fields of recreation and of work all those of this character 
are useful also in this field of social intercourse. The only 
reason for giving this field a separate place in this outline 
is the need to exhibit the fact that the aims in this field are 
distinct from those in any other. It must often happen 
that the same occasion offers an equally good opportunity for 
cultivation in each of two or more fields. The double oppor- 
tunity is utilized, however, only if, at one and the same time, 
the distinctive aims in both fields are present to the teacher's 
mind. 

II. Stories Illustrating Social Virtues and Graces 

Occasionally a story may be useful in connection with the 
foregoing events. Those suggested below and others like 
them may be trusted to exert their own influence on the chil- 
dren' s feelings and standards of action without the aid of a formu- 
lated u moral lesson" 

To illustrate: 

The Story of Echo, In the Child 1 s World, Poulsson. 

The Shepherd Boy who Became King, Old Stories of the East, Baldwin. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 75 

The Master of the Land of the Nile, Old Stories of the East, Baldwin. 

Damon and Pythias, Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Baldwin. 

The Snappy Snapping Turtle, The Golden Door, Sneath and Hodges. 

Citizenship in Organized Community Lipe 
I. Sharing Consciously the Community Life of the School 

In this grade the children are not too young to appreciate 
and enjoy orderly proceedings and beautiful surroundings, in 
short to have civic pride. The community in which they are 
best able to take pride is the one in which they are active 
members for a large part of their waking hours, the school 
community. This pride is cultivated by activities which 
give them frequent opportunities to compare existing con- 
ditions with the highest standards which they at the time 
hold in mind, and then, if necessary, to alter the conditions 
to fit the standards. 

To illustrate: 

1. Choosing from their own number a " captain'' who sees 
that the school is in good order for dismissal, gives the word 
of command, and leads the line, marching in military fashion 
from the building. If the line is long, he is assisted by mar- 
shals. The " officers of the day" are the critics of the pro- 
ceedings, and the teacher is careful to let them have real 
responsibility in the matter. They in turn are subject to 
the criticism of the school. 

2. Choosing from their own number a " housekeeper" who 
has the privilege of changing certain appointments of the 
room, pictures, flowers, and the like, and is responsible 
throughout the day for the neat and attractive appearance of 
the room. 

II. A Study of the Advantages of Organized Cooperation 

At this point the teacher may set the children to thinking 
and talking about the way in which they are working and 



76 Citizenship In School and Out 

playing and getting results in the organized life of the school 
and of the larger community. They may discover something 
like the following: 

1. Some of the things which no one of us could do alone, 
but which we as a school can do: March, sing in concert, 
play games, have spelling, matches, dramatize stories, have 
number drills, etc. 

2. Some of the things which no one of us could do alone, 
but which we working with many others can do: Raise 
enough money to help our Government a great deal toward 
paying our share of the cost of the war (W.S.S. drive), take 
care of sick and wounded soldiers and children who have lost 
their homes through the war (Red Cross work), feed thous- 
ands of hungry people (food saving), etc. 

3. How it is possible for us to do these things together: 

a. There is a plan. 

b. There are leaders. 

c. There is a part for everyone, and everyone is doing 

his part. 
The value of this series of lessons lies in every answer 
being thought out by the children. The teacher's question- 
ing is based upon activities in which the school has actually 
engaged. When the conclusions have been reached by the 
class, they may well be summed up by the teacher and placed 
where they can be often seen and referred to. The class may 
from time to time add to the list of organized enterprises, and 
each time discover the plan, find the leader or leaders, and 
recognize the part of every participant. Perhaps the teacher 
may find a use for a few such stories as these: 

Billy, Betty, and Ben, and the Circus, The Golden Ladder, Sneath and 

Hodges. 
A Quarrel among Quails, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
The Discontented Pendulum, The Golden Path, Sneath and Hodges. 
Three Bugs, Poems, Alice Cary. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Third Grade 77 

Working for the Red Cross, Van Amburg, Primary Education, Dec, 

1918. 
Palma's Friend, The Junior Four Minute Men, Nov. 15, 1918, School 

Bulletin No. 4. 
Finding the Black Walnut Trees, St. Nicholas, Sept., 1918. 
The Call to Service (A Conservation Play), Junior Red Cross 
Activities, Teachers' Manual, Published by the American Red Cross. 
Our Home and Personal Duty, Young American Readers, Fryer, The 
John C. Winston Co. 

727. Dramatization of Visits to Places of Pleasure and 

Privilege 

Children of this grade are making acquaintance outside 
of school hours with some of the places in which the city 
provides special opportunities for their recreation and educa- 
tion in one direction or another. They are accustomed to 
playing in the park, or perhaps on the municipal play- 
ground or recreation pier. It may be that they often are 
taken by their parents and friends to the public library, the 
museum, the aquarium, and the like. It is very desirable 
that they occasionally shall be taken to such places by their 
teacher, not only for the sake of the children who may not 
otherwise go at all; but also because if the teacher shares 
with the class the experience of a visit of this sort, she can 
more easily plan a profitable lesson in civics based upon what 
they have seen and done. 

When it is not practicable to make such class excursions, 
the first step to be taken by the teacher is to find out what 
have been the individual experiences of the children in these 
public places. She is then ready to plan with them informal 
dramatization of visits to such places as are known to most, 
if not all, of the children. To illustrate: 

1. "An Hour in the Park" — The school yard or the 
school-room may become, for the time, the city park. The 
children decide upon the location of the flower-beds and the 



78 Citizenship In School and Out 

grass plots that must not be stepped upon, of the places where 
the children may play freely, of the pond, of the walks, of 
the drives, etc. Next they decide upon the characters which 
they wish to assume in the play. Among these characters 
there must be, not only visiting children and their friends, 
but also policemen, gardeners — - whatever care-takers are 
likely to be found in the real park near by. There may also 
be included horses, dogs, automobiles, baby-carriages — 
whatever is likely to bring about interesting situations in the 
play. In the course of the play the teacher gives the children 
chances to show each other the variety of pleasures and privi- 
leges which the park offers, and helps them to discover what 
part the care-takers play in keeping it attractive. Finally 
she leads them to see, in concrete cases, why there must be 
city regulations to govern certain situations, and how the 
public can cooperate with the police to carry out these regu- 
lations and thus keep the privileges of the place open to all. 
2. "An Hour in the Library" — In this little play the 
chief role (played by a child, of course), is that of the librarian 
who presides over the children's books. It is shown that she 
helps the visitors to find what they want, to see interesting 
books and pictures which are new to them, and to carry away 
books which will be enjoyed by others at home. The attrac- 
tions of the room and the building are recalled to mind, and 
the regulations which preserve these attractions and make 
the conditions for reading favorable are emphasized. The 
reason for the orderly arrangement of the books on the shelves 
is made plain, and the conditions under which books may be 
taken home are illustrated. 



CHAPTER VII 

Courses of Study in the Intermediate Grades 

In the intermediate grades it is customary to divide the 
work of the children more definitely than in the primary 
grades into various " subjects." The " courses of study" 
which have been assigned to us by tradition, or have been 
prepared by specialists in the different subjects, all grow more 
insistent as the child grows older, that he shall acquire a certain 
body of knowledge in each of the informational studies, as well 
as a certain degree of skill in each of the arts of expression. 
The demand is no doubt to some extent a proper one. The 
child, having learned to read, is now in a position to help 
himself more in this effort at learning, and the educational 
process can now be " speeded up." He is now capable of 
bearing the strain of sustained attention for longer than a 
few minutes at a time, and more serious work can therefore 
be required of him. His mind is receptive, his memory 
retentive, and we are naturally desirous, sometimes even 
impatient, to give him now as much as possible of all that 
will be useful to him in the years to come. 

A teacher does well to be ambitious for the children at this 
age of rapid mental growth, and to avail herself of the sugges- 
tions of the best informed experts in the making of courses 
of study; provided that she does not allow any pressure from 
specialists, enthusiastic each over his own subject, to drive 
from her mind two convictions of which she must be per- 
suaded through her acquaintance with children themselves. 

First, that at any age there is much loss of time and energy 

79 



80 Citizenship In School and Out 

in changing frequently (every half-hour, say) from one sub- 
ject to another, if the second has no apparent connection with 
the first; hence the advantage of finding still in these years, 
as for the younger children, centers of interest which will show 
some connection among the different studies and so unify the 
mental life of each child. 

Second, that facts and truths, no matter how easily mem- 
orized, are useful only when applied in some fashion, and 
that the more immediate the application is, the longer the 
fact or truth is remembered, and the more likely it is to be 
applied again and again, as the exigencies of life demand. 

Holding to these two convictions, the teacher is able to 
make good use of courses of study not only in the arts of 
expression, but also in the informational subjects. She does 
not, however, follow them blindly. She is not troubled by 
the bugbear of " covering the ground" in a given time. She 
knows that a little ground made to yield fruit is worth more 
than much ground merely " covered" in rapid race or tedious 
dog-trot. She gets from the specialists valuable suggestions 
regarding material of permanent value in science, in history, 
in literature, — pivotal facts, big generalization, lines that 
"hold the mirror up to nature"; but she takes from this 
material only such portions as have a close relationship to 
the present interests and activities of her particular group of 
children, and she dwells upon these portions by means of the 
concrete details so fascinating to children and by means of 
varied applications of any newly learned truth to well known 
situations, until these intellectual treasures of the race be- 
come the children's own, — not merely the possession of their 
memories, but also veritable factors in their thinking, feeling, 
and acting. 

By using this same material for oral and written composi- 
tions, constructive hand- work, and problems of various kinds, 
she gives practice in the language, drawing, arithmetic, etc., 



Courses of Study in the Intermediate Grades 81 

required by the courses of study. Best of all, she is doing 
more than following courses of study; she is availing herself 
of all the help which the subjects she deals with can yield for 
her chief work, that of training the children in citizenship. 

As an illustration of the above principles, let us consider 
the use which a teacher may make of a typical course in his- 
tory for the intermediate grades. 

It is common to find prescribed for the fourth and fifth 
grades biographical stories from American history. The 
teacher may decide in the case of each man whether the sug- 
gestion that will be conveyed to the children by following 
his experiences with interest will be most helpful in one or 
in another of the fields of citizenship; it may be in the field 
of the home, or of work, or of organized community life, for 
instance. Having made her decision, she may approach 
the story from the angle of the children's experience in that 
field and so teach the story as to bring out that phase of the 
man's life. This does not mean that she will allow her pur- 
pose to twist historical facts out of the right perspective; but 
merely that she will present, with faithful adherence to his- 
torical truth, such efforts of the man and such events of his 
life as will be of interest and use to the children at their pres- 
ent stage of experience, and will so present them that what- 
ever in the narrative has stood out to her as worth while will 
stand out boldly for the children also to see. 

Every biographer necessarily has an individual point of 
view, studies his subject in the light of his own experiences 
and sympathies, writes of him with the purpose to meet the 
interests and answer the unspoken questions of his readers. 
In this method of teaching, the teacher becomes a biographer, 
and the class her public, for whom she selects facts and to 
whom she presents them from her point of view. 

Of course the ability to handle this method belongs only to 
the teacher who is herself a reader. She cannot do the work 



82 Citizenship In School and Out 

on the foundation of brief stories written for children, but 
must have read at least one of the longer and more careful 
biographies, if possible more than one, in order that she may 
have in mind, before beginning to plan the work for the 
children, a vivid sense of the man's personality and a clear 
notion of his relation to the larger historical movement of 
which his work is a part. She must also be a reader of cur- 
rent periodicals. Newspapers and magazines must keep her 
in touch with what is going en in the world to-day in order 
that she may judge what persons and what historical move- 
ments in past days have most vital meanings for children 
who are living in this particular year of the world's history. 
No familiarity with the " storied past" will take the place of 
intelligent and warm interest in the history that is a-making 
to-day. Witness many a school-room throughout the United 
States, in which history, before the war a dead subject, is now 
thoroughly alive, and in which the change is mainly due to 
the awakening of the teacher herself to a new interest. The 
participation of our country in a great war, fought for pro- 
found but simple political principles, has brought close to the 
thought of all of us, many topics before too often regarded as 
merely the stock-in-trade of text-book writers; and this new 
interest is like a clear light showing vital connections between 
certain men and deeds of former years, or centuries, and the 
lives of even young children in this twentieth year of the 
twentieth century. 

The course of study in history for the fourth and fifth grades 
is likely to suggest a larger number of biographies than is 
found in this book among lessons suggested for these grades; 
but the additional stories, if treated as indicated above, may 
fit equally well into the social purposes of education which it 
is the endeavor of this book to exhibit. It is true, however, 
that the method of study suggested on pages 108-112, for 
instance, takes no little time for the consideration of one 



Courses of Study in the Intermediate Grades 83 

story; yet it may be time well spent. The teacher whose 
main effort is bent upon training her pupils in citizenship 
may sometimes be justified in cutting out certain portions of 
a course of study prepared by a specialist in history, and thus 
economizing time for the sake of using it freely and effectu- 
ally upon the portions which she finds best suited to her 
purposes. 

For the sixth grade a course of study is often arranged to 
give "a background of European history" for the systematic 
study of American history which is to follow in the seventh 
year. Here the teacher may do well to remind herself how 
little the general statements of a brief history of Europe, no 
matter how pleasing the style, can mean to readers with such 
limited experience and immature grasp as her children have. 
She will doubtless conclude from her own observation that 
a passage, of one paragraph or of a dozen, which summarizes 
the history of a nation or of a stage of civilization — like 
Feudalism or the Crusades, for instance — makes on a child's 
mind far too light an impression to become an effective back- 
ground for any future study. 

Whereas, if a child has followed with absorbed interest and 
lively sympathy the personal fortunes of even one devoted 
patriot in each of the countries in question, he has caught 
many a vivid glimpse of what that nation stands for, and the 
chances are that he has acquired a desire to learn more and 
yet more of its life. The interest which children manifest in 
certain countries of Europe and their prominent men, now, 
since the war has made their names household words, is proof 
that detailed, personal stories, not logical summaries, are 
what children's minds feed upon. And the curiosity which 
they now show about the ex-Kaiser's grandfather, or the "lost 
Provinces," or the Palace at Versailles — topics which before 
the war would have seemed to them of the dry-as-dust 
variety — is proof that the events of the present are the 



84 Citizenship In School and Out 

natural starting point for a study of the past. With these 
considerations in mind, the teacher will emphasize, in any 
European history course for the sixth grade, those concrete 
and personal elements which are strong in human interest and 
make special appeal to the childish sympathy and imagina- 
tion. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 

Citizenship in the Home 

/. Connecting School Work and Home Work 

We all know that both the home and the school are 
essential agencies in the education of our children, and have 
come to realize that the efficiency of each one is greatly in- 
creased by maintaining a close connection with the other. 
The wide distribution and the gratifying success of parent- 
teacher associations testify to the realization of this fact by 
both parents and teachers. It is perhaps not so generally 
recognized that the best results are obtainable only when the 
children themselves share in the consciousness of this con- 
nection between home and school and help to make it closer. 

When the children are old enough to take some part in 
the work at home, the industrial hour at school becomes an 
excellent opportunity for bringing about this feeling of 
harmony of effort in the two places and for availing our- 
selves of the children's own aid in promoting this harmony. 
To these ends any one of the following means may serve: 

i. Handwork, the products of which can be used or en- 
joyed at home. 

2. Handwork imparting skill which can be immediately 

useful at home. 

3. Exhibitions of work to which parents are invited. 
The particular projects which each teacher undertakes will 

be both suggested and limited by the peculiar circumstances 
of her school; it is important only that they shall belong to 
one or another of the types mentioned above. 

85 



86 Citizenship In School and Out 

To illustrate: If adapted to the circumstances of the 
school, any one of the following is a suitable project: 

a. Raising in the school garden flowers or vegetables to be 

carried home. 

b. Reporting in school the plans made for work in gardens 

at home, also the results obtained from this work. 
(Usefully supplemented by teacher's visits to home 
gardens or close cooperation with garden supervisor 
or inspector.) 

c. Making in the sewing class articles for home use, such 

as dish towels and dust cloths. 

d. Helping to furnish and taking the entire care of a room 

similar to some one which may be found in a 
majority of the homes represented. 
The room mentioned in the project last suggested may be 
only a "sitting-room" established in one corner of the school- 
room, a place where it is a privilege to sit and look at pic- 
tures, read stories, or play games. Or, if circumstances 
permit, it may be a model bedroom, absolutely simple in all 
its appointments, but scrupulously neat and with home-like 
touches which make it attractive. Such a room is some- 
times of use in cases of illness or emergency, but its great 
usefulness is found in the motive it supplies for practical 
sewing lessons and the chance it gives to impress lessons in 
housekeeping and in hygiene. 

Teachers' Aid 
Industrial-Social Education, William A. Baldwin, Milton Bradley Co. 

II. Literature of Home Life 

A second potent, though subtle, means of touching the 
children's home life is the reading of literature chosen be- 
cause it is embued with the family spirit. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 87 

To illustrate : 

Heidi, Johanna Spyri. 

The Golden Touch, The Wonder Book, Hawthorne. 

The Pomegranate Seeds, Tanglewood Tales, Hawthorne. 

Marjorie's Almanac, Aldrich, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 

The Baby's Thoughts, Childhood Songs, Lucy Larcom. 

Father is Coming, Howitt, Child Life, Whittier. 

Peggy's Garden, Stories and Poems for Children, Celia Thaxter. 

Mary's Manger Song, W. C. Gannett, My Lady Sleeps, Page. 

Seven Little Sisters, Jane Andrews. 

Several of these stories and poems are too difficult for the 
children of this grade to read for themselves, but they are 
much enjoyed when read aloud by the teacher. Their in- 
fluence is most strongly felt when the children enter into the 
spirit of each one as a particular, concrete case, and no gener- 
alization or " moral " is drawn. The teacher will naturally 
add to this brief illustrative list favorites of her own that are 
written in the same happy spirit. 

Citizenship in Recreation 

I. Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments 

"The boy without a playground is father to the man with- 
out a job." So runs the already famous dictum of a promi- 
nent leader in one of the most significant social movements of 
recent years. It may be added that the boy who makes 
trouble on the playground, and then complains that the 
other fellows wont play his way, is father to the man who 
takes his pleasures selfishly, without regard to community 
interests, and then complains because others do the same. 
Furthermore it is true that the boy or girl who is often at a 
loss for " something to play," and who answers the inquiry, 
"What did you do on Saturday afternoon?" with a half- 
hearted "Oh, not much of anything," is on the road to be- 
coming the man or woman without resources for the profit- 



88 Citizenship In School and Out 

able and pleasurable use of leisure time, one who when the 
day's work is over, merely loafs, or else spends every evening 
in the same sort of diversion — moving pictures, poker, 
auction-bridge, or whatever it may be — indulging in it from 
habit rather than with zest, and withal pitifully missing the 
revivifying influence of real recreation. All bound up in 
the present day movement toward a shorter working day is 
the equally important movement toward the development, 
by every individual and by the community, of the possibili- 
ties for good which lie in the leisure hours thus gained. The 
wonderful benefits which this generation expects from the 
success of the one movement may indeed fail of realization 
unless the other movement shall attain an equal success. 

In short, not only is education through play one of the 
necessities which child nature itself lays upon us, but also 
education for play is by no means the lightest obligation 
which our desire to train for citizenship binds upon us. 

Consequently the teacher of intermediate grades may well 
plan, no less carefully than does the teacher of younger chil- 
dren, to introduce occasional expeditions and entertain- 
ments with the purposes: 

i. To cultivate individual initiative. 

2. To form habits of cooperation. 

3. To increase the range of recreations enjoyed. 
Occasions which give ample opportunity to combine the 

above aims are not far to seek. 
To illustrate : 

a. A visit to a neighboring farm or to "the park" to see 

animals that the children are curious about. 

b. A Hallowe'en party carefully planned by committees of 

the children acting with the teacher, and giving a 
chance for the jolliest possible time, but avoiding 
the objectionable tricks which children at about this 
age are often tempted to play. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 89 

Teachers' Aids 

Education Through Play, Henry S. Curtis, The Macmillan Co. 
Games for the Playground, Home, School, and Gymnasium, Jessie H. 
Bancroft, The Macmillan Co. 

II. Stories, Poems, Songs, and Pictures 

In this grade the children's ability to read for themselves 
makes it even easier than in earlier grades to attain certain 
ends which have been already mentioned as desirable for the 
teacher to hold in mind, viz. : 

1. To give actual pleasure. 

2. To associate pleasure with books, music, and pictures. 

3. To associate pleasure with acting, singing, and reciting 

or reading aloud. 

4. To help the imagination to reach out in a variety of 

directions. 
Although the children can now get much enjoyment directly 
from books and pictures, there is still, however, many a 
chance to enhance this enjoyment by the skill of the teacher's 
interpretation, by the social exercise of listening and looking 
together, and by the delight which children take in showing 
others "the fun of it." Of course the teacher's first effort is 
to make selection of material excellent in itself and well 
adapted to recreational purposes for children at this age. 
The following list may prove suggestive: 

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll. 

Just so Stories, Rudyard Kipling. 

The Peterkin Papers, Lucretia Hale. 

Fifty Famous Stories Retold, James Baldwin. 

Old Greek Stories, James Baldwin. 

Favorite Greek Myths, Lilian S. Hyde. 

Christmas in Norway, Thaxter, The Art-Literature Reader, Book III, 

Chutter. 
A Christmas Wish, Eugene Field, The Art-Literature Reader, Book III, 

Chutter. 
Piccola (Christmas), Stories and Poems for Children, Celia Thaxter. 



90 Citizenship In School and Out 

The Story of Piccola, Nora Smith, The Children's Hour, Wiggin and 

Smith. 
The Little Fir Tree, Hans Christian Andersen. 
The Ugly Duckling,- Hans Christian Andersen. 
Merry Christmas, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 

No Boy Knows, Riley, The Art-Literature Readers, Book IV, Chutter. 
The Village Blacksmith, Longfellow. 
Horseshoeing, Landseer. . 

The Tree, Bjornstjerne Bjornson, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 
Pussy Willow, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 
The Venturesome Buds, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 
Pussy Clover, Lucy Larcom. 
Beautiful Joe, Marshall Saunders. 
The Mountain and the Squirrel, (a Fable), Emerson, The Heath 

Third Reader. 

III. The Celebration of Holidays 

In the fourth grade, as in the three preceding ones, the 
holidays which have connected with them the greatest possi- 
bilities in this field of education in recreation are Thanks- 
giving, Christmas, Lincoln's Birthday, Valentine's Day, 
Washington's Birthday, Arbor Day, May Day, Decoration 
Day, Flag Day, and whatever day shall be appointed to 
commemorate the outcome of the World War. The cele- 
bration of these days is dominated, too, by the same purposes : 

i. To give the children real pleasure. 

2. To give appropriate associations with each day. 

3. To create admiration for national heroes, the true 

Thanksgiving or Christmas spirit, etc. 

4. To impart variety to the children's notions of "a good 

time." 
There is, however, one mistake sometimes made in observ- 
ing from year to year the same series of holidays. The cele- 
brations of each year are allowed to become mere repetitions 
of those held the year before. The resulting lack of interest 
defeats every purpose of observing the days at all. If the 
entire life story of an historical character, for instance, be 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 91 

repeated on each anniversary of his birth, the children, after a 
few years, tire not only of the story, but also of the man him- 
self, about whom they imagine they know all there is to be 
known. As a matter of fact, of course they know very little, 
and the cure for their ennui is a closer acquaintance with the 
character, but this will not be gained by reviewing an old 
story. Perhaps the surest method of securing variety and 
progress from year to year is that of choosing for each cele- 
bration a different theme, one which is appropriate to the 
children's interest and understanding at that particular time 
in their lives. In developing this theme some one phase of 
the event, or of the life of the man, commemorated by the 
holiday is studied in sufficient detail to make it realized 
vividly. This method also gives an opportunity for much 
self-activity on the children's part in finding stories with a 
definite bearing, retelling them, acting scenes, or doing illus- 
trative work; and taking this active part gives them the 
pleasurable feeling which it is desirable to associate with the 
day and with the event or the hero celebrated. 

To illustrate : 

1 . Christmas. 

Theme: Christmas in other lands. 

Presentation by means of stories, poems and dramatiza- 
tion. When there are children of foreign parentage in the 
school, the customs of the countries from which the parents 
come receive special attention, and pains is taken that the 
pleasure, beauty, or significance of each custom shall be 
evident. This sort of celebration helps to bring about that 
sympathy and understanding among the members of the 
school which is sometimes lacking where there are marked 
differences of dress and speech to divide the group. It is one 
way of showing to those children who are used to American 
customs only that the others have in their home life and 
traditions much to be enjoyed and admired. Any means by 



92 Citizenship In School and Out 

which this fact can be emphasized is a civic lesson of value in 
a country whose people are drawn from so many nationalities 
as are the American people. 

2. Lincoln 1 s Birthday. 

Theme: A strong boy; a strong man. 
Before the day to be observed the children are given books 
in which to look up stories to show how strong Abraham 
Lincoln was. On the day itself they tell the stories; e.g., the 
story of the nine-year-old boy cutting down trees, of the 
miles that boy walked to school, of the young man's wrestling 
matches. The teacher calls attention to Lincoln's picture, 
which shows a face as strong as it is kind. She speaks also 
of the trait of moral strength, of his being strong enough to 
do what he thought right, no matter how hard; strong enough 
to free the slaves and keep the country united. A gala touch 
is added to the day by means of patriotic music and marching 
with flags. 

3. Washington's Birthday. 

Theme: Washington as a worker and as the Father 
of his Country. 
What kinds of work Washington did as a boy and as a man, 
and how he did it, are the questions proposed to the children 
several days before February twenty-second. The answers 
may be found by the children in the stories which tell us of 
the boy's copybook, the young man's journal, the young 
surveyor's work, the carrying of a governor's message, etc. 
The teacher then explains why, later, Washington was called 
the Father of his Country, illustrating by stories of his taking 
command of the army, caring for his men at Valley Forge, 
defeating Cornwallis, being inaugurated President. These 
stories, well told and helped out by pictures, can be made a 
fascinating series which furnishes excellent material for 
impromptu dramatization by the children when the day for 
the celebration arrives. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 93 

Teachers' Aids 
For Christmas: 

Our American Holidays, Christmas, Schauffler, Moffat, Yard & Co. 

Our Holidays Retold from St. Nicholas, Century Co. 

Christmas in Other Lands, George and Coonley, A. Flanagan Co. 
For Lincoln's Day: 

American Leaders and Heroes, Gordy, Chas. Scribner's Sons. 

See also Chapter IV, p. 47; Chapter V, p. 61. 
For Washington's Day: 

Founders of Our Country, Coe, American Book Co. 

Hero Stories from American History, Blaisdell and Ball, Ginn and Co. 

See also Chapter IV, p. 47; Chapter V, p. 61. 
For all Holidays: 

Good Stories for Great Holidays, Olcott, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Citizenship in Work 
/. Working Together and for Others 

By the time the children have reached nine or ten years of 
age they are able, under skillful supervision, to make articles 
of real use; and because this is so, the industrial period in 
school becomes an hour big with possibilities of civic educa- 
tion. Since the articles made are to be actually used, they 
must be made well enough to be acceptable for this use, and 
thus there is established a practical standard of excellence 
which appeals to the children, and it is the very same stand- 
ard which their work must conform to throughout their lives. 
Again, the thought that the finished product must meet this 
test of usefulness is present at every step of the process, 
controlling conditions and influencing the attitude of the 
workers. 

Suppose the work is for a hospital bed, knitting squares for 
a spread. Each piece must be a true square, and all pieces 
must be of the same size. It is sure to happen that a few 
children are able to knit squares that meet these require- 
ments far more easily and quickly than the others can. Each 
of the more successful knitters is usually glad to show some 



94 Citizenship In School and Out 

other child how to accomplish the same result, and under 
these circumstances, the help is likely to be given not with 
an air which says, "See how much looser and better my 
stitches are than yours !" but rather with this explanation, 
"These stitches are the kind which I found would make a 
square of the right size, and you can make such stitches if 
you will hold the needles so" It comes to pass in the 
most natural way in the world that one child helps another, 
and in so doing adds both to his skill and to his neighbor- 
liness. 

Or perhaps it is an apron that is to be made. Fitting the 
pattern on to the cloth and cutting out the pieces is work 
which a boy can do well. The hem, of course, must be 
made by the girl who can take the neatest stitches, while 
the seams may be sewed by one who has not yet learned to 
hem. Thus it happens that groups of children work together, 
each doing the part of the work which he can do best, and 
all interested in the entire achievement. Here we have a 
little concrete illustration of the interdependence of all 
labor, and hence the need of cooperation in industry. 

Finally, if the work is undertaken willingly by the children 
to provide for the needs or the pleasures of other people, 
because these are well understood and sympathized with, 
the spirit of generosity which is beginning to stir within them 
at this age is further awakened. And if this seem an issue 
remote from the training of hand and eye for which this period 
has been assigned, it is nevertheless true that the demand 
which the difficult human problems of modern industry 
make on the broadest sympathies and the deepest insight of 
every citizen gives a hint that it may not be amiss to afford 
what scope we can in the "industrial hour" to the unselfish 
impulses of the young citizens working here. 

Among the articles called for by the Red Cross, also by 
organizations and persons supplying local needs, there are 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 95 

sure to be some of simple enough construction to be appro- 
priate work for an industrial hour of this type. 

Teachers' Aid 
See Chapter VI, p. 73. 

77. A Study of Occupations 

A study of certain occupations essential to life may be 
made not only profitable but even fascinating to children of 
this age if it is based on the Story of Robinson Crusoe. Such 
a series of lessons may well supply the subject of the lan- 
guage work for a month, and at intervals during that time 
it gives material also for geography, natural science, number, 
and reading lessons. The social value of the story and 
related study is very great. In the field of work perhaps 
the most noticeable points that are emphasized by it are the 
following: 

1. The interdependence of men under normal conditions. 

2. The possibilities of achievement by individual in- 

genuity, effort, and thrift. 

3. The respect due to labor. 

This study involves several lines of effort and may be 
planned by the teacher in some such way as follows: 

1. The Story of Robinson Crusoe told by the teacher and 
discussed by the class according to the method suggested 
in the Teacher's Edition of Robinson Crusoe for Boys and 
Girls by Lida B. McMurry (Public School Publishing Co.). 

2. Some of Crusoe's efforts attempted by the class in 
the industrial period. 

3. Observation of the occupations in the children's own 
community which correspond to Crusoe's occupations. 

4. Conversational lessons on village occupations, based 
on the children's questions. 

5. Reading aloud "at sight" from an elementary school 
edition of Robinson Crusoe. 



96 Citizenship In School and Out 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 
/. Practice of the Social Virtues and Graces 

One advantage of a school in which other things than 
formal study and recitation occasionally "happen" is the 
chance thereby given the pupils to act naturally, according 
to their own notions of the requirements of ordinary social 
intercourse. This advantage is, of course, utilized only if 
the teacher seizes her chance, that of observing what these 
notions are and deciding whether or not they need modifi- 
cation or correction. If such need exists, private suggestions 
to certain children may be the way of meeting it; or it may 
be that a general class discussion concerning the social 
demands of the occasion just past will prove useful, crystal- 
izing public opinion and changing the point of view of 
individuals. 

The work is not complete, however, till the new attitudes 
toward these matters have been shown in practice. And 
here it is still true, as in the lower grades, that the most useful 
opportunities for such practice are those where the artificial 
conditions of the conventional school-room prevail least, and 
many conditions of the children's social environment outside 
school are recognized, perhaps even reproduced, 

A few of the occasions which may be allowed by the 
teacher to take on this character are as follows: 

1. Recess, indoors or out of doors. 

2. The industrial period. 

3. Expeditions for nature study, geography, or study of 

occupations. 

4. Entertainments or parties in the school-room. 

5. The luncheon hour. 

II. A Study of Certain Social Customs 

Besides the incidental study of social behavior already 
suggested, it is easy to secure the children's interest in a 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 97 

somewhat systematic study of a few common social customs. 
This study is conducted by a series of conversational lessons 
based on the children's own observation of the good manners 
they have come in contact with. Their observation is given 
direction and encouragement, and the effects of such manners 
are indicated. The children enjoy originating and acting 
little scenes to illustrate points taken up in these lessons. 
The study may be outlined as follows: 

1 . Certain desirable social customs which help us to show : 

a. Hospitality and consideration to guests. 

b. Appreciation and consideration to host and hostess. 

c. Generosity to weaker persons. 

d. Courtesy to girls and women. 

e. Respect to older persons. 

/. Cordiality to acquaintances. 

g. Courtesy to strangers, etc. 

(Examples: lifting the hat, saying "good morn- 
ing," offering a chair, carrying a bundle, serv- 
ing another first, etc.). 

2. Stories about such customs: 

Legends of King Arthur and his Court, Frances N. Greene. 
How Cedric Became a Knight, In Storyland, Elizabeth Harrison. 
Little Beta and the Lame Giant, In Storyland, Elizabeth Harrison. 
Prince Harweda and the Magic Prison, In Storyland, Elizabeth 

Harrison. 
The Fox and the Stork, ^Esop. 

The Miraculous Pitcher, The Wonder Book, Hawthorne. 
Hiawatha's Friends, Longfellow. 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 

/. A Study of this School 

The children of this grade have a sufficient basis in experi- 
ence for a study of one important and far-reaching organiza- 
tion which is typical of our American community life; that 



98 Citizenship In School and Out 

is, the school. Of course the particular school in which they 
are members is the subject of their study. The work takes 
the form of conversational lessons, and all the answers can be 
furnished by the children from their own experience or ob- 
servation or by questioning their elders at home. The object 
of the study is not so much the new information which is 
gained as it is the new light in which these facts are shown. 
The teacher aims to bring out clearly the purpose for which 
the school exists, for which all the children's work is done, 
and her own work and that of the other school officials as 
well; also to show interestingly that this purpose is one held 
by the community as a whole and touches intimately the 
life of all its members in school and out. If she can make 
her pupils see and feel this to be true, it will greatly aid in 
securing their intelligent and willing cooperation with each 
other and with her in their daily work; and it will help the 
school to become all of a piece with the national democracy 
in which and for which these young citizens are being 
educated. 

The main purpose which all communities seek to realize 
in their schools and the firmness with which that purpose 
may be held, inspiring teachers and pupils alike to wonders 
of endurance and achievement, may be illustrated by stories 
of schools in the stricken regions of France, carried on in the 
midst of the alarms and desolations of war to the end that the 
French Republic shall still, in the next generation as in this, 
be safe in the intelligence and patriotism of her citizens. 
Such stories, if used to supplement the study of the children's 
own school, will broaden their horizon and help to show their 
own work in its true light. 

If civics has a place on the program, it is that place, of 
course, which this series of lessons will occupy. If not, the 
subject may be used to supply topics for " language work," 
first oral, then written; for it is evident that there is no sort 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fourth Grade 99 

of training in speech or writing more needed than that which 
increases the ability to make clear and convincing statements 
— no matter how brief and simple — about the true relations 
of familiar facts, and here is good material on w T hich to make 
this attempt. The main points of the study may be ar- 
ranged as follows: 

1. What work is done in this school ? 

Studying, teaching, promoting pupils, supplying 
teachers, deciding on supplies and buying them, 
taking care of the building, etc. 

2. Who do this work? 

Pupils, teachers, superintendent, janitor, truant 
officer, etc. 

3. What must they be provided with in order to do this 

work? Building, grounds, books and other equip- 
ment, living expenses. 

4. Who provide these things and help the work in other 

ways? Tax-payers, parents (whether tax-payers 
or not), school board, board of health, etc. 

5. Why are people willing to give this money and other 

help? What results do they expect? Can you 
mention some men and women who have been 
through this school and are now paying back the 
community by the services which their education 
makes them able to give? 

Teachers' Aids 

"Anywhere in France," John H. Finley, The Outlook, August 8, 1917. 
Keeping School Under Fire, Octave Forsant, The Atlantic Monthly, 

February, 19 18, especially, pp. 251-255. 
You are the Hope of the World! Hermann Hagedorn; and The 

War Schools of France, Bernard M. Sheridan; The Liberty Reader, 

Sheridan, Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. 
A Letter to the Boys of America, Edward N. Teall, War Readings, 

Charles Scribner's Sons. 
The Young Citizen, C. F. Dole, D. C. Heath & Co. 



ioo Citizenship In School and Out 

II. A Study of Voluntary Cooperation 

The large part taken in democratic community life by 
volunteer workers, organizing themselves to do something 
for the common good, makes desirable some study of this 
phase of civics. In a few of these organizations the children 
have a part, yet they often have little understanding why the 
work which they see being done, was undertaken or how it is 
being accomplished. Such examples of voluntary cooper- 
ation as the following are good subjects for study: 

i. The organization, work, and exhibit of local garden 
clubs and canning clubs. 

2. The Christmas trees of churches or the community 

trees. 

3. The work of the Red Cross with a few of the simpler 

features of its organization, enough to show the wide 
distribution of its membership and its benefits. 

4. Current local happenings, as occasions arise which 

illustrate the theme. 
Such topics as the above are unfolded by means of conver- 
sational lessons in such ways as to make plain the following 
points: 

1. The individual is subordinated to the general plan. 

2. There are opportunities open to the individual through 

the general plan. 

3. There are benefits resulting both to the individual and 

to the community. 
These points are not made in these words, of course, 
language which the teacher only would understand, but 
they are made evident to the children by concrete examples. 



CHAPTER IX 

Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 

Citizenship in the Home 

/. Connecting School Work and Home Work 

In this grade the effort is continued to make close connec- 
tion in the children's minds between work done at school and 
that done at home. To this end care is taken that the indus- 
trial work of the school shall be, for a part of the year at 
least, of a character which emphasizes this connection. In 
choosing among different possibilities, it is useful to keep in 
mind three types of work any one of which is of such charac- 
ter: 

i. Handwork the products of which can be used or en- 
joyed at home. 

2. Handwork imparting skill which can be useful at home. 

3. Exhibitions of school work to which parents are in- 
vited. 

Among the many specific projects which conform to these 
types the following may serve as examples: 

a. Making baskets, the kind of basket often being de- 
termined by a suggestion brought from home. 

b. Making small articles for common use, such as holders, 
bay-berry bags (for ironing), bags to hold twine-balls or 
dust-cloths. 

c. Gathering from the school garden vegetables for home 
use. 

The project mentioned last is especially valuable in the 
opportunity which it gives for lessons in thrift. 

IOI 



io2 Citizenship In School and Out 

The children are taught how to harvest the vegetables 
and how to prepare them for the table with attention to 
avoiding waste in either process. How to store those for 
winter use is explained, and a variety of palatable ways in 
which each may be served is suggested. It is desirable 
that the vegetables shall be gathered in the fall by the 
same children who, as members of the fourth grade, planted 
them in the spring. Lessons in drawing, painting, and 
written language are easily correlated with this work. 

Teachers' Aid 
See Chapter VIII, p. 86. 

77. A Study of the Essentials of Home Life 

Stories of American pioneers are commonly studied in this 
grade, and in these we have at hand material which is well 
adapted to call attention to the essentials of home life. 
The record of the lives of those men and women who founded 
and maintained homes in the new country, conquering the 
physical difficulties which beset life in the wilderness, and 
finding sources of enjoyment in a situation barren of the 
gifts of civilization, is a record which is likely to make any 
student of history question thoughtfully, "What makes a 
home?" And the children, becoming acquainted with a 
few of these lives, by listening to stories told by the teacher, 
reading further accounts, and talking over those distant times 
in comparison with our own, find again and again that 
certain essentials made a home then and make it now. They 
find the physical basis of shelter, food, and clothing always 
present; and on the higher levels they find suggested, here 
and there in various ways, other elements of home life, not 
so tangible but none the less essential, both then and now, 
• — protection, for instance, and the corresponding obedience; 
effort, both physical and mental; the affection which makes 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 103 

that effort worth while, and the cooperation which makes it 
effectual. In order to gain such impressions, the children 
must be led to make frequent comparisons between their own 
homes and those of the pioneers or colonial heroes studied; 
but few, if any, of the generalizations which might be drawn 
therefrom need to be put into words. Such general con- 
clusions as the children are ready for will form themselves 
in their minds, as concrete instances are studied with in- 
terest and examined in the light of their own experiences. 
For the teacher to state general truths in this connection, or 
ask the children to do so, is open to the dangers which 
always attend moralizing. 

Below are mentioned several of the historical stories 
which contain much material of the character just described. 
No one of them is intended to be studied as a complete 
biography, but each is to be presented in such way as to 
cover in picturesque detail the topics suggested. 

Suitable Stories 

The Pilgrims. — Voyage. Provincetown. Landing at Ply- 
mouth. Difficulties of the first year. Thanksgiving Day. 
Why the Pilgrims came. Some of the things they cared most 
for. The homes they made. The villages they built. 

Washington. — Boyhood at home. Early manhood to 
Braddock's defeat. How he was chosen to lead and took 
command in the Revolution. How he met big emergencies 
(two or three examples) . How he brought the war to a close. 
How he was made President. 

Lincoln. — Events of boyhood, family, homes, surroundings. 
Journeys. On the farm. On a Mississippi fiatboat. Read- 
ing and study. Black Hawk War. Keeping store. A great 
president who saved the Union and freed the slaves. (Last 
topic merely touched upon). 



104 Citizenship In School and Out 

Daniel Boone. — Making a home in Kentucky. Capture 
and rescue of the children. Capture and escape of Boone. 
Boone as a hunter and farmer. 

Suitable Projects 

i. Building and furnishing a log-cabin. 
2. Writing and acting a play founded upon one of the 
pioneer stories. 

Citizenship in Recreation 
I. Occasional Expeditions and Entertainments 

In the fifth grade, no less than in the first, or any grade 
between, do the children need vigorous play and the quieter 
forms of healthful recreation, because of the opportunity 
these afford: 

i- To cultivate individual initiative. 

2. To form habits of cooperation. 

3. To increase the range of recreations enjoyed. 

The reasons for emphasizing these aims in any scheme of 
civic education have been already suggested, and apply to the 
case of the older children as well as that of the younger ones. 
It is true, however, that the working time of children grows 
increasingly valuable as they grow older and are physically 
able to bear the strain of longer periods of studying quietly 
at their seats, and the teacher is not likely to plan for as much 
time to be spent in recreational activities. To offset this 
tendency and give due emphasis to the aims mentioned above, 
it is necessary to put even more thought than before into the 
plans for utilizing to the full whatever time is appropriated 
to this field of education. 

The variety of games which appeal to children of this age 
is large; and the teacher who both encourages the best of 
those which are in vogue among her particular children, and 
also suggests others that they have never played, not only fills 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 105 

the "recesses" with beneficial activities, but also extends her 
influence over the children outside of school bounds. 

At this age children have keen curiosity about their sur- 
roundings. A visit to the engine house to see a fire drill or 
to the pier where fishing boats are unloading; a walk to 
observe how a roadway is being paved, or one following a 
small stream to find just where it joins a larger one; — what- 
ever expeditions of the sort are possible in the vicinity of their 
particular school-house in town or country — excite their 
interest strongly. Helped by a few questions, they are able 
to observe with surprising accuracy and accumulate much 
information to help in their indoor study of nature, geogra- 
phy, history, literature, and civics; and if the teacher allows 
these occasional expeditions to take on the character of a 
special privilege, showing that she herself shares the enjoy- 
ment, they become not only outdoor lessons, but quite as 
much, occasions of recreation that promote the aims men- 
tioned above. 

Indoors, an hour may often be used to the full for the pur- 
suit of some study required by the program, and yet, at the 
same time, be an hour of delightful recreation. 

To illustrate: A literature lesson may be given in the form 
of impromptu dramatization conducted by the children in 
groups. One child chooses a scene from some story with 
which all the children are acquainted. Titles of suitable 
ones may be found on pages 106-107. This leader does not 
tell the others what story he has in mind, but selects as many 
children as he needs to help him present the scene. This 
group withdraws from the room, lays its plans, and returns to 
act the scene for the others to recognize and enjoy. Then 
comes the turn of another leader and his group. The history 
lessons also yield excellent material for this informal dramatiz- 
ing, but it is best to use the fiction at one time and the true 
stories on another day. 



io6 Citizenship In School and Out 

Teachers' Aids 
See Chapter VIII, p. 89. 

II. Recreational Reading 

The following lists may be of service to the teacher in her 
effort to help the children to find in reading a source of true 
recreation. 

Poems 

The Deacon's Masterpiece, Holmes. 

The Planting of the Apple Tree, Bryant, The Land of Song, Book II, 

Katharine H. Shute. 
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Browning, The Land of Song, Book II, 

Katharine H. Shute. 
October's Bright Blue Weather, Jackson, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 
The Christmas Trees, Mary F. Butts, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and 

Smith. 
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, Eugene Field, The Posy Ring, Wiggin 

and Smith. 
The Snowbird, Butterworth, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 
How the Robin Came, Whittier. 
The Frost Spirit, Whittier. 

Christmas Bells, Longfellow, (First three stanzas). 
From My Arm Chair, Longfellow. 
The Windmill, Longfellow. 
Daybreak, Longfellow. 

Hiawatha's Sailing, Longfellow. (From the Story of Hiawatha.) 
March, Lucy Larcom. 
Little Nannie, Lucy Larcom. 
The Legend of the Northland, Phoebe Cary. 
Wild Geese, Celia Thaxter, Stories and Poems for Children. 

Short Stories 

The Necklace of Truth, Jean Mace, Dramatic Readings, Lansing. 
The Magpie's Nest, Joseph Jacobs, Good Stories for Great Holidays, 

Olcott. 
Christmas Under the Snow, Miller, The Children's Book of Christmas 

Stories, Dickinson and Skinner. 
A Christmas Fairy, Winter, The Children's Book of Christmas Stories, 

Dickinson and Skinner. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 107 

The Golden Cobwebs, Schaufner, The Children's Book of Christmas 

Stories, Dickinson and Skinner. 
Selections by the teacher from the Story of Patsy, Kate Douglas 

Wiggin. 
Selections by the teacher from The Wonder Book, Hawthorne. 
Selections by the teacher from Tanglewood Tales, Hawthorne. 
The Spray Sprite, Celia Thaxter, Stories and Poems for Children. 
Madame Arachne, Celia Thaxter, Stories and Poems for Children. 
Cat's Cradle, Celia Thaxter, Stories and Poems for Children. 

Longer Stories 

The King of the Golden River, Ruskin. 

The Jungle Book, Kipling. 

Kingsley's Greek Heroes, Tetlow. 

The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children, Jane Andrews. 

Under the Lilacs, Louisa M. Alcott. 

Sarah Crewe, Frances Hodgson Burnett. 

Pinocchio, C. Collodi. 

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell. 

Jolly Good Times, Mary P. Wells Smith. 

Jolly Good Times at School, Mary P. Wells Smith. 

777. The Celebration of Holidays 

To the holidays recognized in the program of the lower 
grades (see page 90) the fifth grade may very well add 
Columbus Day, New Year's Day, and perhaps a local holi- 
day, like Patriot's Day in Massachusetts. The several aims 
to be held in mind are still: 

1. To give the child real pleasure. 

2. To give appropriate associations with each day. 

3. To create admiration for national heroes, the true 

Christmas or Thanksgiving Spirit. 

4. To impart variety to the children's notions of a "good 

time." 

Details of three such celebrations are given below by way of 
illustration. 



108 Citizenship In School and Out 

A. Thanksgiving. 

A loan exhibition of such dishes, cooking implements, 
small house-furnishings, samplers, pictures, etc., as might 
have been seen by a Thanksgiving guest at a colonial home 
in the vicinity of the school. Each article, its use and 
associations, may be described by some child for the infor- 
mation of the class. , 

B. Lincoln's Day: 

An Illustrative Lesson 

i. Points of Contact: 

a. Almost any work, physical or mental, which the chil- 
dren have recently done, provided it be hard work by which 
difficulties have been overcome, if called to mind in this 
connection, will furnish a basis for the children's sym- 
pathetic understanding of Lincoln's attitude towards the 
tasks which confronted him, his determination, his persist- 
ence, his fatigue, and his pleasure at accomplishment. It 
is essential that such understanding and feeling be present 
throughout the series of lessons. 

b. Whatever experience the children may have had in 
splitting kindling, building wood fires, working in the garden, 
camping out, or even walking through the woods, will help 
them to form pictures of Lincoln's surroundings and to 
imitate his activities. 

2. Content: The dramatization of three scenes from the 
life of Abraham Lincoln: 

a. Helping his father to open the road from the Ohio 
River to Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana, where the new home 
was to be built. 

b. Helping his father to build and keep burning the fires 
in front of the half-faced camp in which the family spent 
the first year in Indiana. 

c. Borrowing and reading the Life of Washington. Work- 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 109 

ing to pay for the injured book. Rejoicing over owning his 
first book and having the chance to study it. 

3. Materials: 

a. A map of Southern Indiana showing the Ohio River 
and Little Pigeon Creek. 

b. A picture or model of a small, rough log-cabin. 

c. Such stage properties as the ingenuity of the children, 
supplemented by suggestions from the teacher, can find in 
the ordinary school-room furniture {e. g. } rulers, pointers, 
and erasers for firewood), or can easily supply from home or 
out of doors (e.g., an old axe-handle to which a tag board 
blade may be attached). Any elaborate stage setting or 
costuming is carefully ruled out. 

d. Moores' Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls, or any 
other reliable biography of Lincoln which contains a detailed 
account of his boyhood. 

e. A large picture of Lincoln. 
/. An American flag. 

4. Method: - 

The celebration of February twelfth begins with the 
exercise which opens school in the morning. At this time 
comment is made on the strength and earnestness shown in 
the face of Lincoln, whose picture occupies a prominent 
place on one of the walls of the room. Reasons are given 
for the special display of the flag on Lincoln's Day. The 
hymn America is sung. 

At a convenient time later in the day comes an informal 
dramatization of one phase of Lincoln's life. This part of 
the celebration is carefully led up to by a series of history 
lessons extending through several weeks. In these lessons 
the teacher tells the story of Lincoln's boyhood from the 
time of moving into Indiana to that of being settled in the 
log cabin which was built in the second year of residence 
there. Ten pages, 8 to 18, of Moores' Abraham Lincoln 



no Citizenship In School and Out 

furnish the teacher with sufficient information for the basis 
of the story, but it is necessary for her to amplify this ac- 
count — or any account to be found in print — by referen- 
ces to the children's own experiences (such as are mentioned 
under " Points of Contact "), by explanations and word 
pictures which make the situation clear and the feelings and 
acts of Lincoln and his companions lively and realistic, also 
by many questions which reveal whether the children are 
following the story with understanding and interest. 

The three incidents given under "Content" are especially 
emphasized in presenting the narrative. The children retell 
these parts of the story. They then talk over with the 
teacher very fully the best way of "acting out" three scenes 
to represent these incidents. They may plan to show all by 
action and gesture, or they may put words into the mouths 
of the characters, as they please. If words are used, the 
"play" is written. This writing, with the memorizing of the 
brief speeches, furnishes excellent work for the "language 
periods." Next comes the election by the class of the 
members who are to represent the characters in the three 
scenes. 

Now the class is ready for the celebration itself, which 
consists of the impromptu dramatizing of "The Boy Lincoln 
at Work." The omission of rehearsals is intentional. There 
is no attempt to present a finished performance for the enter- 
tainment of spectators. The acting is for the benefit and 
pleasure of the children themselves; it is their opportunity 
to express what the story of this part of Lincoln's life means 
to them. 

If they have got into the spirit of the story, they lay their 
plans very earnestly and greatly enjoy the effort to portray 
in action the events which they have studied. Two boys, 
impersonating Abraham Lincoln and his father, clear away 
the thick underbrush, and chop stout branches off giant 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 1 1 1 

trees, — all with the keenest zest and most untiring energy-, 
this, too, in a space on the school-room floor which to the 
uninitiated looks bare before they begin, but which to their 
lively imaginations is a forest tract. Two girls, in the roles 
of Mrs. Lincoln and little Sarah, wait patiently in the corner 
of the room; for that is the house on the north bank of the 
Ohio where they are glad to rest after their tiresome horse- 
back journey from the Kentucky home. It is from the 
owner of this house that Thomas Lincoln, after the road is 
cleared, borrows a wagon in which to transport his family 
and their few household goods. This wagon may be made 
of chairs, and the actors take much interest in loading it 
with a few old quilts, a small bundle of clothes, and the small- 
est number of camp dishes and implements with which it 
would be possible for a pioneer family to cook and eat primi- 
tive fare. When the loaded wagon and the family are ready 
for the ride over the newly cleared road to the site where 
their new home is to be, the first scene of the little play is 
concluded. 

The second scene represents the building of the fire upon 
which depend the very lives of the family sheltered by the 
half faced camp. The camp has been built of chairs and a 
box cover or two. Abraham works hard to collect anything 
which the school room affords for kindling and firewood, 
while his father keeps steadily at the slow process of striking 
fire from flint. The mother and sister are meantime making 
the camp as comfortable as possible with the few means at 
their command. It may be their part, when the time comes 
for imaginary flames to burst forth from the pile of wood, to 
show the audience, by their exclamations or gestures of 
comfort and pleasure, that the work of building the fire has 
been accomplished. When the mother and two children, 
huddled on a bed of boughs on the cramped floor space of the 
little shack, have gone to sleep, and the father has rolled 



ii2 Citizenship In School and Out 

himself in his blanket and lain down by the fire, with his gun 
by his side, to sleep and watch by turns, in order that the fire 
may burn steadily all night, — then it is that other actors, 
impersonating the wild animals of the region, take delight in 
making the stealthy or fearsome noises that at intervals dis- 
turb the sleeping family. 

In the third scene the' log cabin of the Lincoln family and 
that of their distant neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford, 
may be left to the imagination helped out by the picture 
which has been previously studied. Mrs. Crawford's kind 
treatment of Abraham and Mr. Crawford's gruffness can 
easily be shown, so too the energetic work of the boy pulling 
turnips, or other fodder, through three long, tiresome days, 
and the satisfaction which he feels at finally owning the book. 
This last feeling may perhaps be shown by the triumphant 
manner in which he brings the book home and reads aloud to 
his sister some anecdote about Washington. 

5. Results aimed at: 

If, together with close attention to historical facts and 
probable conditions, the teacher combines sympathetic en- 
couragement of that spirit of enjoyment with which the 
children naturally take part in this sort of play, this form of 
celebration associates with Lincoln's Day much pleasure, as 
well as many impressions which have an educational value. 

C. Memorial Day: 

True stories are told or read to illustrate the bravery and 
self-sacrifice of our soldiers and their families in the Civil 
War, the War with Spain, and the War with Germany. 
Poems are recited and songs are sung which express the spirit 
of devotion to the country and the flag. Poems, whether 
they are to be recited by individuals or sung in concert when 
the day comes, are before that day discussed by all the child- 
ren and interpreted with the help of the teacher. Otherwise 
the recitations would mean little to the audience of children 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 113 

hearing the poems for the first time, and the singing would 
be but a mechanical repetition of words. On the contrary, 
when first interpreted sympathetically by the teacher who 
has sincere patriotic feeling, these poems and songs have 
power to rouse genuine enthusiasm in the unspoiled minds of 
the young listeners. Examples of such poems are: The Flag 
Goes By, Henry Holcomb Bennett; Liberty and Union, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes; The School-House Stands By the 
Flag, Hezekiah Butterworth; The Old Flag Forever, Frank 
L. Stanton; Flag O' My Land, T. A. Daley; Makers of the 
Flag, Franklin K. Lane (Prose for recitation); Keller's 
American Hymn. 

Teachers 1 Aids 

For Thanksgiving: 

Home Life in Colonial Days, Alice Morse Earle, The Macmillan Co. 
For Lincoln's Day: 

Abraham Lincoln, Wilbur F. Gordy, Charles Scribner's Sons. 

See also Chapter .IV, p. 47; Chapter V, p. 61; Chapter VIII, p. 93. 
For Memorial Day: 

The Romance of the Civil War, A. B. Hart, The Macmillan Co. 

Our Country in Poem and Prose, Persons, American Book Co. 

The Young and Field Literary Readers, Books IV and V, Ginn & Co. 

The Little Book of the Flag, Eva March Tappan, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

The Liberty Reader (War of 1917-1918), Sheridan, Benj. H. Sanborn 
Co. 
For all Holidays: 

Good Stories for Great Holidays, Olcott, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Citizenship in Work 

/. Working Together and for Others 

Industrial work of the character described on pages 93- 
95, is continued in this grade with the same purposes in 
view. 



H4 Citizenship In School and Out 

II. A Study of Physical Surroundings and their Relation 

to Getting a Living 

An elementary study of the physical features of the region 
in which the children live and the relation of these surround- 
ings to the work of getting a living is a study that utilizes the 
eager curiosity which children have to explore their surround- 
ings and the interest which they feel to watch what people 
about them are doing. 

This study is conducted by conversational lessons and 
composition writing. The work is not carried beyond the 
ability of the children to make all the observations upon 
which the general statements are based. This observation 
needs to be directed, however, by the teacher's questions, 
and answers to questions are often postponed to another day 
when the report of new facts observed can be given. 

The series of lessons may be planned according to the 
following outline: 

i. Leading features of our immediate natural surround- 
ings; e.g., harbor, shore, pastures, peat-swamps, woods, till- 
able land. 

2. How each of the above is utilized by us or our neighbors 
in getting a living. 

3. Story of John Smith: Exploring Cape Cod and other 
northern coasts. Settling in Virginia. Capture and adven- 
tures with Indians. His curiosity to know his surroundings 
and his mastery over them. His success as leader of the 
colony. 

4. Story of Marquette and Joliet: Reasons for coming 
to America. Explorations. Adventures. Relations with 
Indians. Difficulties overcome. Regions known through 
their efforts. 

The observations and discussions brought out in handling 
topics 1 and 2 lend reality to stories 3 and 4. The stories 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 115 

in turn help to make clear to the children the importance of 
the connection which exists between environment and occu- 
pations. Many comparisons are made between points in 
these stories and in the stories of the Pilgrims, of Lincoln, and 
of Daniel Boone. These lessons may be so given as to lay 
foundations for intelligent study, in the future, of many 
phases of history, geography, and economics. 

Teachers' Aids 

Pioneer Stories of the Mississippi Valley, Charles A. McMurry. 
Pioneers on Land and Sea, Charles A. McMurry, The Macmillan Co. 
Stories of Pioneer Life, Florence Bass, D. C. Heath & Co. 
Heroes of the Middle West, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Ginn & Co. 
Indians and Pioneers, Hazard and Dutton, The Morse Company. 
Book of American Explorers, T. W. Higginson, Longmans, Green & Co. 
Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Vol. I, Chapters III, IV, V, John 
Fiske, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

III. A Study of How our Wants are Supplied 

A few of the material wants of which the children are most 
conscious may be the subject of an interesting study; for 
instance: 

1. Desire for food: 

Milk, meat, groceries, fruit, candy, etc. 

2. Desire for clothes: 

Dry-goods, ready made clothing, etc. 
This study is conducted by conversational lessons and 
composition writing based on the individual interests and 
observations of the children. The following are chief among 
the phases of the subject which the teacher's questions are 
directed toward exhibiting: 1. The extent and the variety 
of labor required to supply our wants. 2. The division of 
this labor between producers and distributors (merchants, 
delivery men, railroad men, etc.) 3. The interdependence of 
members of this community and of different communities. 



n6 Citizenship In School and Out 

IV. A Study of How We Supply Wants of Others 

A companion study to that suggested by our own wants is 
one concerned with how we supply some wants of others. 

The recent war afforded, of course, an unequalled oppor- 
tunity for showing the interdependence of people the world 
over in the matter of. their daily food. The fact that the 
children were eating " substitutes " and many of them vol- 
untarily denying themselves luxuries in order to help in the 
more even distribution of food throughout this country and a 
good part of Europe gave them an experience which was in 
itself most valuable, and which could be turned to account 
as the basis of useful lessons on production and distribution 
of products. 

Our share in the relief work in Europe will for a time afford 
a similar, though somewhat less impressive opportunity. 
And the lessons arising from both these opportunities are as 
important in the field of Organized Community Life as they 
are here in the field of Work. 

In ordinary times, however, when children's feelings are 
not deeply concerned with the wants of those who are at a 
distance from them and are unknown to them, the study must 
be more limited in scope, but may still be a useful one. It 
may take up one, or perhaps two or three, of the leading 
industries of the place, those only in which it is certain there 
are points of contact with the children's interests, such as 
one in which many of their friends are employed, or one 
which has attracted their attention by the interesting char- 
acter of some of its processes carried on in their vicinity. 
The study may be conducted according to the method 
described under III above and with the same purposes in 
view. 



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Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 117 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 
/. Practice of the Social Virtues 

In the field of social intercourse children develop at about 
this age, some a little earlier, some a little later, several 
distinct tendencies which increase the difficulties of their 
training, but at the same time open new possibilities of 
growth. 

They are far less imitative and teachable than they have 
been. Individuality and independence are waking in them 
and incline them to disregard both authority and public 
opinion in matters of personal appearance and behavior. 
They prefer to be different from others; they like to " shock" 
their elders, and are unwilling to practice even as much as 
they know of the social amenities. This trait is stronger in 
boys than in girls, but is present to no small degree in the 
more enterprising of the girls. 

Recognizing the existence of this tendency, the teacher 
has to choose between working against it or with it. She 
may put more emphasis than ever on the conventionalities of 
social intercourse, and so enforce their observance, at any 
rate in her own presence; or she may take the opposite 
course, and touch more lightly than in the earlier grades upon 
matters of form, for the sake of emphasizing more strongly 
the substance. She may even, for the time being, overlook 
some crudity or some omission which has already been pointed 
out to the children, when they were younger, and should 
be called to their attention again, when they reach the more 
socially sensitive stage of a few years later; but only that 
she may put her main stress now on the sturdiest virtues, 
the traits most indispensable to any worthy companionship. 
She may emphasize respect for one's own character and for 
others' rights (involving truthfulness, self-control, and 
honesty), also quickness to see another's needs and willing- 



n8 Citizenship In School and Out 

ness to meet these. In this way she may be able to preserve 
in the children the strength and originality of character which 
belong with the feeling of personal independence, and at the 
same time to prevent the growth of the selfishness which is 
its other most frequent accompaniment. If this latter 
method of training is successful, its benefits no doubt far 
outlast the more immediate and more evident results of the 
former method. 

Another strong tendency at this age is to belong to a gang 
(in case of a boy) or to a clique (in case of a girl), and to be 
dominated by its influence. This tendency seems opposed 
to that of personal independence, and yet we know that the 
two exist side by side. We have all seen children who fol- 
lowed without question the slightest hint of the leaders in 
these small, exclusive social groups, but who were at the same 
time quite unresponsive to suggestion from any influence 
outside these groups. In spite of the risks to the child's 
social nature in the development of cliquishness or of the 
gang spirit, there is nevertheless, without doubt, something 
here to be cherished. These natural impulses to follow the 
leader, to give up one's own will to that of the group, to 
stand with the group against the world; — these appear to 
be the germs of the civic virtues of loyalty and cooperation. 
How to give to their development the right direction is of 
course the difficult question. It seems unlikely that to 
break up the gang or the clique is the best answer. A more 
promising attempt at solution is to enlist the interest of the 
group in some accomplishment that is worth while and thus 
seek gradually to broaden the social sympathies of its mem- 
bers until they become no longer a gang or a clique but a 
team with a friendly spirit toward other teams or the nu- 
cleus of a non-exclusive club or circle. 

In order to make these attempts the teacher is obliged to 
avail herself of all those occasions when the children come 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 119 

into the freest social contact: recesses, luncheon hours, 
industrial periods indoors or in the garden, expeditions, enter- 
tainments, — all such as have been suggested in discussing 
other fields in education, especially that of recreation. 
These occasions thus become double, or may be threefold, 
opportunities for the teacher who keeps in mind the distinct 
objects to be attained in each field. 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 
7. The Playing of Organized Games 

The playing of games belongs of course to the field of 
recreation and has received recognition in the discussion of 
that field. Organized games, however, are noticed again in 
this field, because of the training they afford in many requi- 
sites of the active, useful participant in organized community 
life. 

The ability to act promptly and with decision and the habit 
of acting in cooperation with others and in accordance with 
law are two of the most important results that may be hoped 
for from this form of activity well directed. 

Examples of games which give training of this character 
and yet are not too difficult for this grade are: " Scrub Base- 
ball," Basket Ball Distance Throw, Circle Dodge Ball, School 
Room Dodge Ball, Three Deep, Last Man, Bean Bag Games, 
Croquet, Blackboard Relay Race. 

77. A Study of " The Rules of the Game" 

After the children have for some time been interested 
players of some game, a class discussion of how that particu- 
lar game is played supplements very helpfully the training 
given by the activity itself. Little or nothing is stated by 
the teacher as an authority, the children's attention is merely 
directed toward the significance of facts which they are al- 



120 Citizenship In School and Out 

ready familiar with, or which they can discover for them- 
selves. The discussion may bring out the following points: 
i. Exactly what the rules are (of the particular game under 
consideration). 

2. In case of change, who must make the change or agree 

to it. 

3. Why there must be rules anyway. 

4. Exactly what "playing fair" involves. 

5. Why "not playing fair" spoils the game. 

6. What other kinds of activities besides games have rules 

or laws ? 

7. Whether strong and skillful men and women think it 

worth their while to really "play the game." 
This study affords material for language work both oral 
and written. The first topic mentioned above is an especially 
good one for an exercise in clearness of statement and orderly 
arrangement. 

777. A Study of Cooperation for Safety 

Though children of this age do not readily generalize, nor 
gain much from studying the generalizations of others, yet it 
is possible, by choosing a topic close to their experience, to 
impress the fact that, at least in the concrete instance studied, 
protection is needed, and can be secured only through com- 
munity action. The interest which most children take in 
fire-engines and in automobiles determines the choice of two 
topics which may be outlined as follows: 

1. Protection from fire: 

a. Our own fire drill in school. 
Why we have it. 

Exactly how it is conducted. 

b. The drill of the Engine Company of our district. 
Why they have it. 

Results secured by it. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Fifth Grade 121 

c. Fighting fire in this village (town, city). 

Steps taken from the discovery of fire to its ex- 
tinguishment. 

Any organization, rules, commands, obedience, 
independent thinking ? 

d. Preventing fires in this village (town, city). Con- 

crete instances given and examined till the means 
of prevention is classified as follows: 
Prohibition by local community or by State. 
Positive provisions by the same. 
Prudence of individuals. 
2. Protection from automobile accidents. 

The means of prevention discussed and classified as 

under d above. 
Any organization here, rules, obedience, independent 
thinking ? 
This series of lessons is developed by questioning the 
children upon their observations and experiences in these 
matters and by encouraging them to ask questions in school 
and out. In the course of the inquiry (especially into the 
prevention of fires and accidents) they will learn many facts 
about the government of the town and of the State. The 
main effort of the teacher, however, is to help them to reason 
clearly from a variety of starting points, to the following 
conclusions: (1) There are cases in which no person can 
protect himself solely by his own efforts. (2) The best pro- 
tection from certain dangers can be secured only by acting 
with others (team work). (3) Team work means organiza- 
tion (each one in his own place), rules, obedience, and in- 
dependent thinking (to understand the rule; to judge it; if 
a. good one, to obey it in spite of opposing opinions; if not 
a good one, still to obey it, but help to change it to a better 
one). 

Similar lessons may be based upon the activities of the Boy 



122 Citizenship In School and Out 

Scouts and the Girl Pioneers or Camp Fire Girls. These 
activities are also exceedingly useful aids to the study both of 
pioneer life recommended in this grade, and of inventions in 
the next grade. Boys and girls who belong to these organiza- 
tions have experiences which make them especially interested 
in such subjects and enable them to gain much from their 
study. 



CHAPTER X 

Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 

Citizenship in the Home 

/. Connecting School Work and Home Work 

To keep a close connection in the children's thought, as 
well as in fact, between school work and home work the follow- 
ing lines of effort are useful in this grade: 

i. Handwork the products of which can be used or en- 
joyed at home. 

2. Handwork imparting skill which can be useful at home. 

3. Written exercises describing work done at home. 
Several examples of projects which carry out these lines of 

effort are as follows: 

a. Re-caning chairs brought from home. 

b. Making aprons, sweeping caps, towels, etc. 

c. Mending articles of clothing brought from home. 

d. Writing on such topics as: "The most difficult 

piece of home work I ever did," "Last week's odd 
jobs at home," "A true anecdote to illustrate 
the saying, ' A penny saved is a penny earned."' 

Teachers' Aids 

Stories of Thrift for Young Americans, Prichard and Turkington, 

Charles Scribner's Sons. 
See also Chapter VIII, p. 86. 

II. A Study of the Connections of Home with Outside 

World 

A study of the ways in which the homes of this village, 

town, or city are brought their supplies and are connected 

123 



124 Citizenship In School and Out 

with one another and with the outside world may cover the 
following topics: 

i. Modes of communication: 

Post Office, telephone, telegraph, newspapers, maga- 
zines. 
2. Modes of travel and transportation: 

Railroad, motor car, motor boat, steamboat. 
Uses and convenience of the above are suggested by the 
children and emphasized by comparison with the times when 
no such means of communication or travel existed. This 
gives an opportunity for reviewing stories of pioneer and 
colonial life, especially in this region, and brings up new 
historical information. 

Teachers' Aids 

Stage Coach and Tavern Days, Alice Morse Earle, The Macmillan Co. 
How Our Grandfathers Lived, Source Readers in American History, 

No. 3, Edited by Hart and Chapman, The Macmillan Co. 
Children's Stories of American Progress, Henrietta Christian Wright, 

Charles Scribner's Sons. 

Citizenship in Recreation 

/. The Celebration of Seasonal Festivals 

In discussing the field of Recreation in all preceding grades 
much emphasis is put on the value of well directed play at 
recess, of school-room games that review lessons and give 
pleasure at the same time, of excursions which are recreative 
no less than instructive, and of occasional entertainments 
that supply the motive for learning many things. These 
suggestions apply equally to this field in the sixth grade. 
It is desirable in this grade to continue all of these activities, 
but it is practicable now to bring some of them, and also 
many of the lessons, under the direction of a motive which 
holds sway for a longer time than for the specific occasion or 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 125 

for a few days preceding and following it. Such a motive 
is found in the celebration of seasonal festivals. 

The main opportunity for education here is in the planning 
of the festivals and the preparing for them. It is while 
they are getting ready for the day to be observed that the 
children come to feel what it is all about, to realize the theme 
which the celebration is meant to embody. They are 
therefore given, not only the part of performers on the 
festival day, but also a large share in making all the plans 
and executing them. They help in contriving and making 
costumes, in choosing lines to be recited, and in determining 
the action which shall express the theme. For this reason 
there is not time for more than two festivals in any one year. 
Other grades in the school and home friends share in the 
pleasure of the final occasion, at least so far as guests may. 
Hence different festivals are chosen for observance in suc- 
cessive years. 

Social benefits likely to follow from the work and play 
involved in any one of these celebrations are at least these: 
1. The habit of cooperation and a better understanding 
of its possibilities. 2. A more refined ideal of recreation. 

Some of the social values which are peculiar to each festival 
are suggested below as guides to the working out of each 
celebration. 

Most of the work of preparation will easily find a place in 
the work of the classes in reading, language, history, geog- 
raphy, drawing, nature study, and physical training, or will 
be undertaken by the children in recreation periods. 

Festival Days from which to choose semi-annually 

1. Thanksgiving. 

a. Chief themes: the processes of nature which bring the 
harvest and prepare the earth for another spring. The labors 
of man which aid nature and store and distribute her products. 



126 Citizenship In School and Out 

b. Results aimed at: A clearer comprehension of our 
dependence upon nature. A more sympathetic touch with 
those whose labors, bring to us the yield of the earth and the 
sea. A keener appreciation of home comforts and pleasures. 

2. New Year's Day. 

a. Chief theme: Each new year a fresh opportunity to 
contribute to the forward movement of the social groups of 
which each one is a member. These developed by dra- 
matic presentation of progress of one group in past year 
and possible progress in year to come, with emphasis on 
individual contribution. The group chosen may be the 
class, the school, the village, or the neighborhood. 

b. Result aimed at: Greater degree of social helpfulness. 

3. Arbor Day: 

a. Chief theme: The usefulness and beauty of our trees 
and shrubs. 

b. Results aimed at: Added interest in work on trees and 
in gardens. 

4. May Day. 

a. Chief themes: Joy in the reawakened life of nature. 
Historic expressions of this feeling and present opportunities 
for its expression. 

b. Results aimed at: Increased pleasure in the outdoor 
world. Better appreciation of the part such pleasure may 
play in the life of the community. 

Teachers' Aids 

Festivals and Plays, Percival Chubb and Associates, Harper and 

Brothers. 
(Exceedingly suggestive as to the spirit and purpose of all the above 

festivals, and helpful as to the details of planning Thanksgiving 

and May Day.) 
Our American Holidays, Schauffler, Moffat, Yard & Co. 
See also Chapter VIII, p. 89. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 127 

77. Recreational Reading 

So various are the interests and tastes of readers, even at 
this early age, that it is not easy to prescribe a course in 
literature that shall have the result aimed at here, — that 
worth while books shall be thought of as sources of genuine 
pleasure and shall be eagerly resorted to in leisure hours. 
It is not easy for anyone to prescribe, but the teacher know- 
ing something of her children's tastes may suggest, and 
perhaps the following list of titles may help her to make 
happy guesses. 

Poems 

The Kitten and the Falling Leaves, Wordsworth, The Posy Ring, 

Wiggin and Smith. 
March, Wordsworth, The Posy Ring, Wiggin and Smith. 
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, Cunningham, Poetry for Children, 

Eliot. 
Letting the Old Cat Die, Nature in Verse, Lovejoy. 
A Christmas Carol, Phillips Brooks, The Young and Field Literary 

Readers, Book Five. 
The Wind and the Moon, McDonald, Heath Fourth Reader. 
April Rain, Robert Loveman, The Young and Field Literary Readers, 

Book Five. 
Talking in Their Sleep, Edith Thomas, The Edson-Laing Readers, 

Book Four. 
A Boy's Song, James Hogg, The Edson-Laing Readers, Book Four. 
The Law of the Jungle, Kipling, The Second Jungle Book. 
Columbus, Joaquin Miller, Golden Numbers, Wiggin and Smith. 
The Charge of the Light Brigade, Tennyson, Poems Every Child Should 

Know, Burt. 
The Birds of Killingworth, Longfellow. 
The Bell of Atri, Longfellow. 
Santa Filomena, Longfellow. 
The Barefoot Boy, Whittier. 
The Three Bells, Whittier. 
The Pipes of Lucknow, Whittier, 
The Pumpkin, Whittier. 



128 Citizenship In School and Out 

The Corn Song, Whittier. 
The Gray Swan, Alice Cary. 
The Wise Fairy, Alice Cary. 

Short Stories 

Columbus and the Egg, Good Stories for Great Holidays, Frances J. 
Olcott. 

Hofus, the Stone Cutter, Good Stories for Great Holidays, Frances J. 
Olcott. 

The Mother Murre, Good Stories for Great Holidays, Frances J. Olcott. 

Ann Mary, Thanksgiving, Robert Haven Schauffler. 

The Greatest of These, Children's Book of Christmas Stories, Dickin- 
son and Skinner. 

The Tell-Tale Tile, Children's Book of Christmas Stories, Dickinson 
and Skinner. 

Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, Dramatic Readings, Lansing. 

A Boy's Friendship, Dramatic Readings, Lansing. 

The Just Judge, Dramatic Readings, Lansing. 

Longer Stories 

Jackanapes, Juliana H. Ewing. 

The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain. 

The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann Rudolph Wyss. 

The Little Lame Prince, Dinah Mulock Craik. 

Little Men, Louisa May Alcott. 

Eight Cousins, Louisa May Alcott. 

The Bird's Christmas Carol, Kate Douglas Wiggin. 

Finding a Home, Kate Douglas Wiggin. 

Half-a-Dozen Housekeepers, Kate Douglas Wiggin. 

What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge. 

Little Pussy Willow, Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett. 

Captain January, Laura E. Richards. 

Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers, John Burroughs. 

The Second Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling. 

Citizenship in Work 

I. Working Together and for Others 

Industrial work of the character described on pages 93- 
95 is continued in this grade with the same purposes in view. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 129 

II. A Study of Several Inventions 

This study is correlated with the study of the connections 
of the home with the outside world which is described on 
page 124. The inventions considered are those which make 
possible the modes of travel and transportation dwelt upon 
in the other study. The work is taken up in a simple and 
concrete way by first finding out what the children have 
noticed about the steam engine or the gas engine, for example; 
next examining the nearest convenient one at work; then 
having the story of how the inventor conceived the idea and 
made it workable; and last by discovering more fully than 
had been realized what the invention means to us to-day. 
The following outline may be suggestive. 

A . Communication : 

1. The Printing Press: 

a. At the office of the local paper. 

b. Caxton's printing press. 

2. The telegraph: 

a. The Western Union Office. 

b. The work of Samuel Morse and of Cyrus Field. 

3. The telephone: 

a. At home and at the central office. 
&. Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. 

c. The telephone message from New York to San 

Francisco in 1915. 

B. Travel and Transportation: 

1. The locomotive engine at the station or gas engine of 

an automobile. 

2. The nearest stationary engine at work. 

3. James Watt and his invention. 

4. Robert Fulton and his steamboat. 

5. George Stevenson and his locomotive. 

6. The work of modern steam engines in transportation. 



130 Citizenship In School and Out 

7. Also their work in manufactures (touched upon). 

8. The convenience and utility of the gas engine. 

Teachers' Aids 

American Inventions and Inventors, Mowry, Silver, Burdett & Co. 
Stories of Useful Inventions, Forman, The Century Co. 
Four American Inventors, -Perry, American Book Co. 
Stories of Invention, Hale, Little, Brown & Co. 

The Boy's Own Book of Great Inventions, F. L. Darrow, The Mao 
millan Co. 

777. A Study of Services to the Community 

The children of this grade have not yet, in most cases, either 
the necessity or the desire to consider seriously the choice of 
a vocation; hence a systematic study of vocations would be 
premature. However, in the course of the preceding study 
on page 124, there is inevitably some mention of the work- 
men employed in the occupations being discussed, and often 
much interest is manifested in this part of the discussion 
because of the personal acquaintance which some of the chil- 
dren have with individual workmen. Here is a good opening 
for an informal study of a subject which will be increasingly 
interesting to these young people from now until the time 
when they have made their choice among ways to earn a 
living. And they are not too young to have their eyes 
opened to some aspects of "a job" in its relation to the 
individual worker and to the community, — aspects which 
are often overlooked when the problem of choice becomes a 
personal one; for instance, that the extent of the worker's 
general education helps to determine wages and other rewards; 
that no matter what the work, health is the worker's greatest 
advantage; and that the value of the service to the com- 
munity is worth considering. Some parts of the following 
outline may come close enough to the children's interest to be 
profitable for study. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 131 

Services to the community rendered by: 

1. Printers, publishers, editors. 

2. Telegraph operators and line men. 

3. Telephone operators and line men. 

4. Postmasters and clerks. 

5. Engineers, conductors, brakemen. 

6. The Coast Guard, etc. 

a. Work required of each of the above. 

b. What their qualifications and education must be. 

Citizenship in Social Intercourse 

7. Practice of the Social Virtues 

Considerations urged concerning social intercourse among 
the children of the fifth grade have equal force in this grade. 
See pages 11 7-1 19. 

II. Stories from European History 

That Americans of different origin shall understand and 
respect each other is a matter of grave importance and one 
that directly concerns our schools. We whose families have 
been long American desire that those who have come to us 
lately from foreign countries shall not only acquire our 
language, learn to transact business as we do, and become 
familiar with the machinery of our politics; but that they 
shall also understand our national characteristics and in- 
stitutions, and share our national memories and aspirations. 
In a variety of ways many of our schools are beginning to 
make provision to accomplish this more satisfactorily than 
in the past. They are not only giving special instruction 
in English and much attention to practical matters, but also 
they are teaching a civics which deals especially with the 
meaning and spirit of our democratic forms, and through 
American history and biography are attempting to bring the 



132 Citizenship In School and Out 

children into contact with men and deeds that reveal dis- 
tinctively American ideals. This is indeed a movement of 
immense significance to the welfare of our republic. 

There is a parallel movement in education whose need has 
been, perhaps, as yet, less widely recognized. If newcomers 
from any foreign land and Americans of longer standing are 
to understand and respect each other, this means that each 
group of people shall acquire knowledge of the institutions 
and appreciation of the ideals which have shaped the lives 
of the other; at least to such an extent as will enable both to 
discover that there is some common ground upon which 
they already stand, to look with friendly interest at the 
customs in which they differ, and to accord generous admira- 
tion to the qualities in which one or the other nationality 
excels. The same mutual knowledge and sympathy must 
come to exist among the various groups of new-comers, each 
with a different origin, but all now traveling the same way. 
This broadening of an intelligent sympathy among our own 
people, older Americans and newer ones, this harmonizing of 
civic aims among ourselves, will result, it may be hoped, 
not only in our having a more unified national life, but also 
in our bearing a more useful part in that new international 
life which lies before us. 

The schools can no doubt work toward this end in many and 
various ways. One way is being attempted by those schools 
which introduce something of European history into one of 
the intermediate grades, most often the sixth. When this 
study of Europe takes the form of tracing the sources of 
civilization and noting the contributions of each race or 
nationality to its ever widening stream, it is a formidable 
undertaking for any child of elementary school age. From 
material of European history, however, there doubtless can 
be chosen certain stories suited to the comprehension and 
interest of young children and at the same time calculated 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 133 

to broaden their national sympathies. The ideal story for 
this purpose is one that is in some degree typical of the 
nationality represented, but especially it is one that illus- 
trates fundamental human feelings and traits such as the 
children can sympathize with, or worthy actions and achieve- 
ments such as they can admire. 

The discussion of this study is placed here in the field of 
Social Intercourse, instead of in the field of Organized Com- 
munity Life, where it may seem more logically to belong, 
for the reason that at the children's present stage of thinking 
probably the greatest effect of the study is produced upon 
their attitude in social matters. At the same time it is 
hoped that this attitude may later determine effects in the 
field of political thought and life. 

In making up the following list the attempt has been to 
select a few suitable stories and to indicate, in each case, 
the reason for the choice; that is, so far as the reason exists 
in the story itself. The reason must be completed by the 
discovery of some corresponding interest in the particular 
children for whom the story is selected. The teacher must 
of course discard freely from this list and add freely to it. 
Differences in antecedents and in associations make different 
teachers and different groups of children care for quite dif- 
ferent stories among the great variety that the Old World 
has bequeathed to us. And as history and literature more 
fully record particular incidents in the four years' struggle 
of Democracy against Autocracy in arms, there will be 
presented for choice unnumbered stories of present day 
heroism and devotion at the front of battle and at home in 
nearly every country of Europe. 

A Tentative List of Stories 

1. Concerning two Greek cities 

a. How an Athenian boy was educated 

(Physical excellence, love of beauty and of his city) 



134 Citizenship In School and Out 

b. How the Athenians saved their city at the Battle of Marathon 

(Courage, resourcefulness, cooperation) 

c. How a Spartan boy was educated 

(Physical strength, fortitude, love of city) 

d. How the Spartans fought at Thermopylae 

(Courage, endurance, obedience to law) 

e. How Athens was burned and how it was rebuilt 

(Civic devotion and pride) 

2. Concerning one whom the Irish honor 

Incidents in the life of St. Patrick 

(Devotion to Christian belief, desire to help others, self- 
sacrifice) 

3. Stories of Alfred the Great 

a. Learning to read 

b. In a cow-herd's hut 

c. In the Danish camp 

d. Meeting the Danes in battle 

e. Making a treaty with Guthrum 

/. What he did for his people in peace 

(Patience, wisdom, energy, unselfishness) 

4. Richard the Lion-Hearted and Saladin 

(Courage and chivalry) 

5. The French Heroine, Joan of Arc 

(Courage and self-f orgetfulness) 

6. Columbus, the Italian who found America 

(Imagination, courage, and perseverance) 

7. Magellan, the Portuguese explorer 

The first voyage around the world 

(Imagination, courage, and perseverance) 

8. Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth 

a. How he gained her favor 

b. How he served her and England 

(Courtesy and enterprise) 

9. William Shakespeare, England's greatest poet 

a. Holding horses at the door of a London theater. 

b. Acting in others' plays 

c. Writing plays of his own 

d. One of the plays he wrote, A Midsummer Night's Dream: the 

songs of the fairies in Acts II, III and IV, with the thread 
of the story needed to connect the songs 
(The power of imagination) 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 135 

10. Peter the Great of Russia . 

(Common sense and practical activity) 

11. Mozart, the poor German- Austrian boy who became one of the 

world's greatest musicians 
(Love of beautiful music) 

12. Canova, an Italian sculptor 

(Love of beauty, ingenuity, interest in animals) 

13. Lafayette, the French friend of Americans 

(Love of liberty and order) 

14. Elias Lonnrot, the modern minstrel of Finland 

(Love of country and of poetry) 

15. Ole Bull, the Norwegian boy who became one of the world's greatest 

violinists 
(Love of beautiful music) 

16. The story of Queen Victoria's life 

(Womanliness and the desire to make England a land of good 
homes and peaceful prosperity) 

17. Florence Nightingale, the pioneer nurse 

(Capability and service) 

18. The work of the Scotch missionary, David Livingstone 

(Courage, perseverance, and service) 

19. The search for Livingstone by the Welshman, Henry Morton 

Stanley 
(Courage, perseverance, and service) 

20. The story of a Belgian hero, Father Damien 

(Service and self-sacrifice) 

21. Typical child life in several countries of modern Europe in war 

and in peace 

22. Heroes and heroines of the War for Democracy and Peace. For 

example: 
Edith Cavell 
Cardinal Mercier 
Marshal Ferdinand Foch 
Capt. Albert Ball, V.C. 
John Travers Cornwell, First-Class Boy, H. M. S. 

Chester 
The Seventy-five Chasseurs at Gerbeviller 

Teachers' Aids 

Ten Boys on the Road from Long Ago to Now, Jane Andrews, Ginn & Co. 
Great Deeds of Great Men, Corney and Dorland, D. C. Heath & Co. 



136 Citizenship In School and Out 

The Story of the Greeks, H. A. Guerber, American Book Co. 
European History Stories, Eva March Tappan, Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Stories from English History, Henry P. Warren, D. C. Heath & Co. 
Introductory American History, Bourne and Benton, D. C. Heath & Co. 
American Beginnings in Europe, Wilbur F. Gordy, Charles Scribner's 

Sons. 
An Introduction to American History, Alice M. Atkinson, Ginn & Co. 
Pioneers on Land and Sea, Charles A. McMurry, The Macmillan Co. 
Historical Stories, English and French, Morris, J. B. Lippincott Co. 
Joan of Arc Saved France, W. S. S. Poster, Haskell Coffin. 
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Mark Twain, Harper & Brothers. 
A New Statue of Jeanne d'Arc, Grace Humphrey, St. Nicholas, March, 

1916. 
Famous Men of the Middle Ages, Haaren and Poland, American Book 

Co. 
Christopher Columbus, Justin Winsor, Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Life of Columbus, Washington Irving, R. F. Fenno & Co. 
Christopher Columbus, Mildred Stapley, The Macmillan Co. 
Heroes Every Child Should Know (King Alfred, King Richard, Father 

Damien), Hamilton W. Mabie, Doubleday, Page & Co. 
The Talisman (Richard and Saladin), Sir Walter Scott. 
Kenilworth (Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth), Sir Walter Scott. 
William Shakespeare, Hamilton W. Mabie, The Outlook, Vols. 64-66. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare. 
Tales from Shakespeare, Charles and Mary Lamb. 
The Life of Peter the Great, Jacob Abbott, Harper & Bros. 
Moore's Encyclopedia of Music, Oliver Ditson Co. 
A Score of Famous Composers, Nathan H. Dole, T. Y. Crowell & Co. 
Short History of France, Kirkland, A. C. McClurg Co. 
The True Story of Lafayette, E. S. Brooks, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 
Hero Stories from American History, Blaisdell and Ball, Ginn & Co. 
The Friday Afternoon Story Hour (Lafayette), Alice E. AUen, 

Primary Education, October, 1918. 
Address on Lafayette Day, Robert Bacon, Outlook, Sept. 20, 1916. 
Finland and Finns, Arthur Reade, Dodd, Mead & Co. 
Stories from Life (Ole Bull), O. S. Marden, American Book Co. 
In the Days of Queen Victoria, Eva March Tappan, Lothrop, Lee & 

Shepard Co. 
Florence Nightingale, Laura E. Richards, Appleton & Co. 
Boy's Book of Explorations (Stanley), Tudor Jenks, Doubleday Page 

&Co. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 137 

The French Twins, Lucy Fitch Perkins, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

The Belgian Twins, Lucy Fitch Perkins, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

The Irish Twins, Lucy Fitch Perkins, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

The Liberty Reader, Bernard M. Sheridan, Benj. H. Sanborn Co. 

War Readings, National Board for Historical Service, Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 

American Patriotic Prose, Long, D. C. Heath & Co. 

The Red Cross Magazine (Files from 19 15 . . . ), Published at Gar- 
den City, N. Y. by The American National Red Cross. 

Citizenship in Organized Community Life 

/. The Organization and Conduct of a School Club 

The organization and conduct of a school club is an ac- 
tivity from which sixth year pupils may learn many lessons 
in civics. The expressed purpose of this club may be to 
earn the money for some addition to the convenience or 
beauty of the school room, to supply some need in the 
community, or to contribute to any good cause which appeals 
to the children. The teacher, however, while working with 
the children for this object, keeps in mind, as of chief im- 
portance, another set of purposes; viz., that the children 
shall learn from experience at least the following elementary 
principles of sound democracy: 

1. The justice of each member having a voice in affairs. 

2. The necessity of a fair and thoughtful selection of 

officers. 

3. The satisfaction of cooperating efficiently. 

4. The benefit to all of managing public funds (club 

money) carefully. 

II. A Study of the School Community 

In the glow of successful accomplishment at the close of 
some cooperative enterprise whose outcome is especially 
gratifying to the children, there is the chance to start the 
inquiry into the secret of this success, and gradually to un- 



138 Citizenship In School and Out 

fold the following outline. The general principles of civic 
life shown here are of course applicable as well to the com- 
munity outside the school-room, and the children may 
partly understand this. These lessons are not effective or 
helpful unless built upon the children's own observations, 
inquiries, and experiences. The outline must state their 
real conclusions or its purpose is not attained; hence the 
teacher asks questions about concrete instances in school- 
life, and makes the outline from the children's answers. 

Outline 

The success of work and recreation in school is dependent on: 

1. Cooperation: 

a. Elements involved: responsibility, effort, helpfulness, etc. 

b. Persons involved: pupils, teachers, superintendent, janitor, 

school-board or committee, parents, taxpayers, and voters. 

2. Government: 

a. School law 

Made by town or city authorities, superintendent, teacher 
alone, teacher and pupils together. 

b. Obedience to law 

Required of school-board, superintendent, teacher, and pupils. 
Enforced by respect for each others' rights, by public opinion, 
and by officials. 

III. A Study of Concrete Instances of Beneficial Community 

Action . 

Some concrete instance of a necessity, convenience, or 
pleasure secured by the action of the local community may 
be brought to the children's attention, and a simple study 
of it may be made on such lines as the following: 

Our street lights. 
To whom useful? 
How supplied? 
Why not by individuals? 
How paid for? 
Poles located by whose permission? etc. 



Suggestions for Lessons in the Sixth Grade 139 

This study leads to the gaining of some information on 
the subject of local government, and better still, if the 
specific instance of benefit conferred by community action 
is one which really interests the children, it leads also to a 
desire to find out how this government works, and what sort 
of services it performs for us. Such topics as "The Quaran- 
tine/' for example, extend this study beyond the local gov- 
ernment to that of the State, and such conveniences as the 
money we are handling or the mail we are receiving may be 
examined until they show glimpses of the National Govern- 
ment in action. 

In time of war the national life is felt to be close to each 
one of us, surrounding us with its protection, defending our 
very lives, and standing for all that makes life worth living. 
In time of peace this national life is just as near to our in- 
dividual lives; the protection which it affords us and the 
opportunities which it offers us are, of course, not less, but 
greater; the closeness of contact is, however, less vividly felt. 
Here arises a wonderful chance for teachers to do a truly 
patriotic service by pointing out, from time to time, with 
steady purpose, this relationship. 

For this purpose we can use all those current events in 
national affairs which do actually touch the children's inter- 
ests. By interpreting the real significance of such, we can 
make even quite young children feel that it is still through 
our National Government that we "provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
of liberty. " We can go further, and show them our hope that 
in the new era which is dawning we shall continue, as we 
have already begun, to do this not only for "ourselves and 
our posterity," but also, in fellowship with other nations, 
for all the peoples of the world. 



140 Citizenship In School and Out 

Teachers' Aids 

The Community and the Citizen, Arthur W. Dunn, D. C. Heath & Co. 
Community Civics and Rural Life, Arthur W. Dunn, D. C. Heath & Co. 
The New American Citizen, Charles F. Dole, D. C. Heath & Co. 
How to Teach the Fundamental Subjects, Chapter IV, Kendall and 

Mirick, Houghton Mifflin Co. 
Democracy and Education, especially Chapter II, John Dewey, The 

Macmillan Co. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE 

Books referred to in the preceding pages as containing the stories and poems 
recommended for reading in the several grades are here listed. They are ar- 
ranged according to titles. The literature selected can in most cases be found 
in other books than those given here, often in equally desirable editions. The 
editions listed, however, are all suitable ones for a school library. 

JEsop's Fables, A Child's Version, J. H. Stickney, Ginn & Co. 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, The Macmillan Co. 

Andersen's Fairy Tales, First Series, J. H. Stickney, editor, Ginn & Co. 

Art-Literature Readers, Books Three and Four, Frances Elizabeth 
Chutter, Atkinson, Mentzer & Co. 

Beautiful Joe, Marshal Saunders, American Baptist Publishing Society 

Birds' Christmas Carol, The, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Houghton Mifflin 
Co. 

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 

Book of Fables and Folk Stories, The, Horace E. Scudder, Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 

Bryant, William Cullen, Poetical Works, Household Edition, Apple- 
ton & Co. 

Captain January, Laura E. Richards, Dana Estes & Co. 

Cary, Alice and Phoebe, Poetical Works, Household Edition, Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co. 

Chicken World, The, Pictures drawn by E. Boyd Smith, G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons. 

Children's Book of Christmas Stories, Asa Don Dickinson and Ada M. 
Skinner, editors, Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Children's Hour, The, Vol. I, Eva March Tappan, editor, Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 

Child's Garden of Verses, The, Robert Louis Stevenson, Chas. Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 

Child Life, John Greenleaf Whittier, editor, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Child Life Readers, Vol. Ill, MacDonald and Blaisdell, The Mac- 
millan Co. 

Dramatic Readings, Marion Florence Lansing, The Macmillan Co. 

Edson-Laing Readers, Book Four, Benj. H. Sanborn & Co. 

141 



142 Citizenship In School and Out 

Eight Cousins ■, Louisa May Alcott, Little, Brown & Co. 

Favorite Greek Myths, Lilian S. Hyde, D. C. Heath & Co. 

Finding a Home, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Fifty Famous Stories Retold, James Baldwin, American Book Co. 

For the Children's Hour, Carolyn S. Bailey and Clara M. Lewis, 
editors, Milton Bradley Co. 

Golden Door, The, The Golden Ladder, The Golden Path, Sneath, Hodges 
and Stevens, editors, The Macmillan Co. 

Golden Numbers, Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, 
editors, Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Golden Windows, Laura E. Richards, Little, Brown & Co. 

Good Stories for Great Holidays^ Frances J. Olcott, editor, Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 

Goops and How to be Them, Gelett Burgess, F. A. Stokes Co. 

Great Deeds of Great Men, Corney and Dorland, D. C. Heath & Co. 

Half-a-Dozen Housekeepers, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Henry Altemus Co. 

Heart of Oak Books, Vol. I, Charles Eliot Norton, editor, D. C. Heath 
&Co. 

Heath Fourth Reader, The The Heath Third Reader, D. C. Heath & Co. 

Heidi, Johanna Spyri, H. B. Dole, translator, Ginn & Co. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Poetical Works, Household or Cambridge 
Edition, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

In Storyland, Elizabeth Harrison, Central Publishing Co. 

In the Child 's World, Emilie Poulsson, editor, Milton Bradley Co. 

Jackanapes, Juliana H. Ewing, D. C. Heath & Co. 

Jolly Good Times, Jolly Good Times at School, Mary P. Wells Smith, 
Little, Brown & Co. 

Jungle Book, The, The Second Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling, The 
Century Co. 

Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling, Doubleday, Page & Co. 

King of the Golden River, The, John Ruskin, D. C. Heath & Co. 

Kingley's Greek Heroes, Tetlow, editor, Ginn & Co. 

Land of Song, The, Book II, Katharine H. Shute, compiler, Silver, 
Burdett & Co. 

Larcom, Lucy, Poetical Works, Household Edition, Houghton Mifflin 
Co. 

Legends of King Arthur and His Court, Frances N. Greene, Ginn & Co. 

Little Knights and Ladies, Margaret Sangster, Harper & Bros, 

Little Lame Prince, Dinah Mulock Craik, D. C. Heath & Co. 
. Little Men, Louisa May Alcott, Little, Brown & Co. 

Little Pussy Willow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Houghton Mifflin Co. 



Bibliography 143 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Poetical Works, Household or Cam- 
bridge Edition, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Mother Stories, More Mother Stories, Maud Lindsay, Milton Bradley Co. 

Mother Goose, Eulalie Osgood Grover, editor, Frederick Richardson, 
illustrator, P. F. Volland & Co. 

My Lady Sleeps, Katherine S. Page, editor, L. C. Page & Co. 

Nature in Verse, Mary I. Lovejoy, editor, Silver, Burdett & Co. 

Nature Myths, Flora J. Cooke, A. Flanagan Co. 

Nixie Bunny in Manners Land, Joseph C. Sir-delar, Beckley-Cardy 
Co. 

Old Greek Stories, Old Stories of the East, James Baldwin, American 
Book Co. 

Peterkin Papers, The, Lucretia P. Hale, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Pinocchio, C. Collodi, E. P. Dutton & Co. 

Play Days, Sarah Orne Jewett, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Playtime and Seedtime, Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm, 
Appleton & Co. 

Poems Every Child Should Know, Mary E. Burt, editor, Doubleday, 
Page & Co. 

Poetry for Children, Samuel Eliot, editor, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Posy Ring, The, Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, 
editors, Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Prince and the Pauper, The, Mark Twain, Harper & Bros. 

Racketty Packetty House, Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Century Co. 

Red Cross Magazine, The, The American National Red Cross, Garden 
City, N. Y. 

Rhythmic Action Plays, and Dances, Irene E. Phillips Moses, Milton 
Bradley Co. 

Sarah Crewe, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charles Scribner's Sons. 

Secret Garden, The, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Grossett & Dunlap. 

Seven Little Sisters, Jane Andrews, Ginn & Co. 

Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers, John Burroughs, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

St. Nicholas, The Century Co. 

Stepping Stones to Literature, Second Reader, Sarah Louise Arnold and 
Charles B. Gilbert, Silver Burdett & Co. 

Stories and Poems for Children, Celia Thaxter, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children, The, Jane Andrews, Ginn 
&Co. 

Stories to Tell, Sara Cone Bryant, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Story Hour, The, Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora A. Smith, editors, 
Houghton Mifflin Co. 



144 Citizenship In School and Out 

Story Hour Readers, Book Two, Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie, Ameri- 
can Book Co. 

Story of Patsy, The, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Swiss Family Robinson, The, Johann Rudolph Wyss, J. H. Stickney, 
editor, Ginn & Co. 

Tanglewood Tales, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Riverside Literature Series, 
Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Thanksgiving, Robert Haven Schauffler, Moffat, Yard & Co. 

Through the Farmyard Gate, Emilie Poulsson, editor, Lothrop, Lee & 
Shepard Co. 

Under the Lilacs, Louisa May Alcott, Little, Brown & Co. 

What Katy Did, Susan Coolidge, Little, Brown & Co. 

When Life is Young, Mary Mapes Dodge, The Century Co. 

Whittier, John Greenleaf, Poetical Works, Household or Cambridge 
Edition, Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Wilderness Babies, Julia i\ugusta Schwartz, Little, Brown & Co. 

Wonder Book, The, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Riverside Literature Series, 
Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Young and Field Literary Readers, The, Books Four and Five, Ella 
Flag Young and Walter Taylor Field, Ginn & Co. 



